The Rescue
by alexoiknine
Summary: #56: The Animorphs and Leah await Ondrean's call on a nearby moon in Kelbrid space, when they intercept a Skrit Na transmission - which sends them on a rescue mission during their wait.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

My name is Jake.

I was a normal kid, once. A kid that liked sports, a kid a bit tall for my age. I got awkward around cute girls. I thought I was going to be a basketball player. I had – and still have – brown hair and brown eyes. Saw one of me, could have seen a million of me.

The difference is that whether or not I liked it I was destined to become a freedom fighter. First against the Yeerks – and if you don't know that story by now, then you should read the narratives from before, because I could write a whole book there before moving onto the new challenge.

Now for creatures in _Kelbrid_ space – possibly starting with the _Kelbrid_ themselves.

It began with trying to save one of my old team – Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill – and becoming ensnared in a terrible creature known as The One, a parasite that lived off of our experiences and our minds – instead of our bodies. And when it took me, took my team, we were placed in a reality within our own minds, of its own creation, as well as ours.

We escaped, my friends and I. Along with two new allies.

Me, the "leader" of the team. Though it seemed like everyone from my own team had, thankfully, shaped up to be good leaders all by themselves.

Marco, my best friend, the comedian and skeptic. Olive skin, dark long hair, dark eyes, and a bit on the short side.

Ax, the Andalite prince who had started with us so long ago as an _aristh_ or Andalite cadet in the military. The younger brother of Elfangor, who had given us the power to morph using Andalite technology called the _Escafil _device.

Tobias, the human boy who had become trapped in the morph of a red-tailed hawk. The boy who, now, was trapped in the body of an Andalite morph that through strange circumstances was actually his uncle.

Ondrean, one of the crew aboard the spacecraft – the _Intrepid_ - that had been destroyed by The One. One of our successful rescues. Who, using an Andalite fighter we found at The Cage, as we had called the spacecraft that had held us hostage – had headed back for Andalite space. Both to report us as missing on an illegal journey in _Kelbrid_ space, and try to gather some supplies and crew. For when we got a hold of the Blade Ship. Though right now we were on an Andalite research vehicle.

And Leah, a girl our age who had been a Human-Controller – someone who had been controlled by a Yeerk – for many years only to end up as part of The One until we saved her. A girl our age that didn't really know how to act like an adult because she'd had no control over anything she'd done for so many years.

We were out in search of the Blade Ship, as well as waiting for a report back from Ondrean telling us where to meet to gather what he was collecting. The current spacecraft we were in was smaller than the Blade Ship, but still really wasn't made for five people. We would need more crew to staff either place enough to fly.

To operate the craft we needed a minimum of three people. And that was not optimum – it was high-risk, even if the people operating had all been trained Andalite. A lot of controls went untouched, on auto-control, and we had to hope we didn't hit any emergencies.

And, being an Andalite vessel, the food supplements there were made for Andalites. Great for Ax and Tobias. Terrible for us humans. We were having to eat grass emergency paste for Andalites unable to stand.

It was going to be a rough few weeks before we got the call from Ondrean.

Then there was the complication of staffing the controls for any particular shift – with a minimum of three crew awake at any time and five people it meant every position, and everyone, would end up needing to take a double-shift on the bridge. Leah or Ax had to be present for any shift because they had the most experience knowing how to operate spacecraft. Leah was used to Yeerk spacecraft and had been forced into training as a Human-Controller, but since Yeerk technology copied Andalite technology she had been fairly easily updated.

Lastly, to make my life just that more difficult: Leah and Marco did not exactly get along. They could both be forced to work together, but it was a strain on anyone being forced to listen for hours on end to their conversations.

"You. Have. Not. Heard of. Weird Al."

"No"

"And you have _never_ heard of MTV"

"No. Is that like an acronym or something?"

You see what I mean.

Marco knew she'd been infested before she hit adolescence. And during one of these sorts of interrogations we found out she'd never had cable as a kid. Her mom had been trying to avoid her getting addicted to cable television and so Leah just never saw a lot of that stuff. Then she'd been infested so she'd had no reason to even try to get into it later on. But since then he'd just spent any time with her trying to find out just how ignorant about everything she was. I think he was entertained by it all, but it just didn't work for the rest of us.

So, I had to try to arrange shifts so that they would be Marco, Ax, and Tobias or me. Or Leah, me, and Tobias or Ax. Giving the three of us the most weight as double-shifters. But I couldn't always do that, obviously, because that was too much of a workload and unfair to everyone else. So sometimes they ended up working together. And I'd always try to take that shift as the third wheel to spare Ax and Tobias.

Mostly I was frustrated at Marco. He's my best friend and always will be, of course, but Leah couldn't exactly help being out of the loop, and she was fairly immature. We'd been out here a few weeks and it was just one of those things – you could see her trying to be the adult she'd never had a chance to become, but getting frustrated at her lack of success.

Hopefully she'd figure out how to reconcile her lost childhood with her current adulthood now. At least she'd stopped saying "grown-up" or little things like that. Picking over her food when there was really no option available. But she'd spent all of her adolescence and a few extra years being controlled by a Yeerk tyrant. So acting like an adult or showing interest in things aimed at anything beyond ten years old or so just hadn't happened. We had to hope that could be overcome now, with her already being our age.

So I tried to be really, _really _understanding. On the other hand...

"How could you not have heard of _Star Wars_?"

"Hey! I've heard of that one – the one with Spock, right?"

"Marco!" I snapped, "_Please _cut it out."

As long as she wasn't learning, he was going to have to learn. In the meantime, I was really wishing I had shipped her back off with Ondrean to go to Earth.

We had been waiting for Ondrean's call. Hopefully it would be coming any day now, because otherwise we were running low on supplies – and the supplies we had weren't exactly sustainable for humans in the long run.

We were getting antsy. Irritable about being on board. Hungry and mad about the food situation.

Once I'd read that the biggest problem with sending a flight to Mars wasn't the actual flight – but the close interaction of a small team for the years it would have taken to get there, back in our old we had gotten Andalite aid and had become technological partners. Being stuck alone with such a small group would cause paranoia and other serious problems. Cabin fever.

Eventually, we were going to have to get away from that particular situation.

So, we used the _Researcher_ to look for nearby planets and moons that could sustain human and Andalite life, until we got the call from Ondrean. A place to land the craft, stretch our legs, and get some real rest that could not be had from space. Preferably not too far, preferably with no likeliness of being noted by any intelligent life – since Andalites were not supposed to be in _Kelbrid _space and finding us would have started an interstellar war. Well, probably. Maybe a _nothlit _and a disgraced outlaw wouldn't count.

Ax had taken control of the search. And, in a few days, he proudly pointed the coordinates of a planet with three moons – one of which showed up as having water, a breathable atmosphere safe to both of our species, and mostly just grasses on the landforms.

"Wow Ax. It's perfect. Is there any particularly dangerous life?"

‹No, this planet has potential for more complex life forms at some point. Atmospheric disruption in the past slowed its development of animal life forms.›

"Ah. Good for us, then."

Everyone was excited. Everyone was happy. We cruised out into Z-space and came out a few hours away from the moon. A pretty good leap, since we couldn't go too fast without time slowing down for us. A lot of the time in the past if we were in Zero space we would end up weeks away from our destination.

With all five of us on the bridge, we managed to get down onto the planet surface. Tobias and Ax could really graze for the first time in a long while. There was fresh water, and the grass, a neon orange color, was soft and comfortable in the land of plenty.

"This could totally be our home base," Marco said, "At least, until we're really moving on our new mission. This could be our place to come back to, so we don't go completely crazy on the Researcher."

Tobias and Ax agreed – as a claustrophobic species being on the spacecraft for long periods of time wasn't really easy, even if they were used to it. Leah seemed more indifferent, now that she'd had an opportunity to stretch. Since she wasn't social, she didn't seem to feel the strain of people not being present the same way we did.

But I agreed with the others – I'd definitely had started feeling on edge myself. The last war, we'd been at school during the day. We could meet at the mall. There had been people all around, everywhere. Or we had been fighting. Not this long, drawn out exploration and search for specific items and goals.

"Yeah," I said, "This is a good spot. How about we set up camp? Sleep outside tonight, if the weather's mild."

‹It will be, Prince Jake.›

We could. It would be easy enough to leave the Researcher's communications up so we could get important messages. And we could turn everything else off to prevent ourselves from showing up like a blimp in another craft's detection systems.

I gave in. We couldn't be searching or fighting our whole time out there on a mission.

And so we set up camp for some rest and relaxation while waiting for Ondrean's call.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

There were lakes nearby that the Researcher showed was just your basic H₂0 – clear water, when we continued exploring the next day. So we collected it. We weren't in danger of losing water, really – but it was good to know it was available. And Ax could make it so the water was clean and not dangerous, using the lab on the Researcher. We didn't have to worry about getting some weird infection, and it was just one other supply we didn't have to waste while in space. All the supplies we had were things that had to be stocked – even Andalites hadn't quite gotten to a point where they could have everything recycle itself indefinitely.

However, Tobias was the one who found out the most interesting thing about the lakes on the moon. He may have been Andalite, but he still had a lot of the hawk brain in his mind, scanning, looking for prey.

And he had information important to any human that has spent weeks on grass paste.

‹Guys, there are simple animals out there. They... Well, they're not lobsters, but the same basic idea? Looks like they have exoskeletons and whatnot.›

Marco dropped everything. The bucket of water we'd been collecting. Not that it was an emergency or anything, since we had simply decided to move the camp slightly closer.

Of course, I wished he could have spared getting the water all over the grass. Now it was going to be useless for starting a fire again in the evening and we'd have to re-collect materials for a campfire.

"Food? Glorious, wonderful food that we could be cooking and eating at this very moment? The magnificent, luscious, juicy sensation of lobster could be in my mouth?"

"Marco, everyone's been eating the same food as us. Except Ax and Tobias."

"But FOOD!" Marco cried, "Wonderful, glorious FOOD! We must take it. The lobster creatures will be ours, now. Don't get me wrong. I feel for the lobster. I was a lobster. The idea of eating one has been a phobia since then. But Jake, it's _real_ food. The first we've known of in a while."

My mouth was watering. Lobster had never been my favorite food. But after weeks of eating food made for sick Andalites I was feeling his pain, badly. We were hungry no matter how much we ate, and we were going through the food rations fast.

I relented.

We got items from the Researcher for picking up life forms for study – of course, study wasn't our plan. Even so, it took a long time to catch them. There was a lot of "Prince Jake, you do not use that so. Like this." In thought speak, of course. But eventually we started getting the hang of it.

But hours later, closer to the evening, we had food. Our lobster-things had eight legs, but didn't really have claws. They were fuzzy-looking with purple stuff, but it wasn't hair. We weren't really sure what it was, actually. And the creepiest thing was probably that their eyes were more similar to a mammal or bird than a lobster. So it looked helpless and smart, compared to a lobster that you see sitting in a grocery store somewhere just waiting for its death.

Creepy.

We brought them back to camp, where Leah had been maintaining the communication system waiting for news from Ondrean, who was supposed to be arranging for us to get supplies. Or, possibly as good, a transmission from the Blade Ship. Ax had downloaded its frequency while we had still been aboard the Kelbrid.

Leah balked at what we brought home.

"Ewwww," she said, but it was more of a moan.

"Dinner!" Marco said cheerfully, "Come and get it!"

"I am _not_ eating that."

"Leah," I said, "We're all adults here. We can eat these... Well, whatever they are... And not waste our supplies further until Ondrean tells us it's time to come back."

"Jake," she said seriously, "I will forfeit my dinner tonight of either variety before eating those things. I don't trust them. Look at those eyes! Ugh, they're like gross, smart spiders. How can you eat something with eyes like that on a body like _that_? It reminds me of a nightmare I had where it turned out my dog was a mutated spider! And it ate me!"

Marco sniggered.

"Fine," I said, weary, "Keep watching the communication board. Don't eat tonight, unless you feel like eating these things."

She was going to have to learn to be mature someday. Everyone has to deal with things they don't like.

We – well, Marco and I - cooked them over the fire, and ate them while Tobias and Ax were off grazing. They were actually really good. Way better than lobster. I was almost tempted to go out to the lake and grab more. It's wasn't like there hadn't been a lot of them in the lakes. But I didn't want to eat too much of a food Earth has never even seen.

I wondered while I was eating whether Ax had approached the subject of Tobias being a _nothlit _again, or what his next steps would be. I'd been keeping my mouth shut, afraid to say anything at all on the matter. The guilt was pretty overwhelming, but Tobias didn't seem to be taking it the same way as being trapped in hawk morph.

I wasn't sure if that was true, or if he just wasn't letting me see the truth.

Marco began waving his lobster creature around.

"Sure you don't want them, Leah?" Marco teased, "They're _really_ good."

"Ugh. No, no way."

"Your loss." And he popped another piece into his mouth. "They could use some butter, though."

Tobias, Ax, Marco and I all told each other stories and goofed off a bit – well, as much as Ax ever would goof off. We were having a good time. This was a better environment, a better situation. And everyone was getting better rest now that we weren't all trying to split a job meant for eight to twelve people amongst five. Landing here, it had just about saved our sanity.

After dinner we all sat around our little fire, falling asleep, other than Leah. Her shift watching the communications board wasn't over yet.

I don't know how long I drowsed off. It couldn't have been that long.

"Jake! Jake! _Jake!_"

I got up as someone continued shaking me, whispering urgently to avoid waking other people up. It was Leah, done with her shift. But that wasn't why she had been trying to get my attention.

I noted somewhere in my tired, withdrawn, irritated mind she was getting, over the weeks, slightly less likely to avoid touching people to get their attention, at least, when the situation really needed.

"Jake! A transmission!"

"Blade Ship? Or Ondrean?"

"Neither," she hissed, "It's a Skrit Na raider. But it's showing that it has passengers it 'found.' In Andalite space. They're hauling them to a zoo."

"What are they?"

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said, "I'm not that good with exo-datology. They haven't specified anything on the transmission and I don't really get their encrypted data."

The Skrit Na are a strange species. Well, two animals really – they transform during their development sort of like a butterfly. So the Skrit is like the caterpillar, and the Na would be like the butterfly or moth. Though I wasn't sure it actually happened the same way as a butterfly or moth – just that they hibernated like those sorts of insects do when they're changing from one to the other.

Not that I'd met one at that point, so I wasn't the person to explain the Skrit Na or what they looked like. But Ax had told me that they spent a lot of time collecting life forms and taking them to zoos, or performing experiments on them, and no one knew exactly why. Still, we needed to know more about what they had. It could be related to the Blade Ship. And even if it wasn't, the Skrit Na were in _Kelbrid _space, which meant Andalites and humans wouldn't be going after them anytime soon.

"Go wake Ax," I whispered.

I wasn't sure what we were going to learn when Ax looked at the file. But I had a feeling our vacation was over.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Ax had become a really strong, experienced Andalite veteran. He'd learned to be a light sleeper, and he came over to investigate right away, no questions asked. But even though he was a professional, he looked, to me, a bit put off and irritated by being woken up.

His monologue might have given me a bit of a hint to his irritation more than his general demeanor.

‹Stupid Skrit Na raider,› he muttered, ‹Should have asked Ondrean to try and get translator chips for everyone before we left. Now I have to wake up to interpret every little detail anytime this happens until we can acquire some...›

"Uhm, Aximili? You sort of said that out loud. All of it."

He blinked a few times rapidly. He was embarrassed, and turned a stalk eye toward me in a bit of a wave – a sort of apology. But then he was back to business. Without accidentally telling us all his dark, secret thoughts about what he thought of having so much human crew without training. Or translator chips.

"So what's the story?" I asked.

‹I am still looking it up, Prince Jake.›

"You know, you're a prince yourself now. You can stop calling me 'Prince Jake' unless you want me to start calling you 'Prince Aximili' – okay?"

He kept speaking to the computer and reading what was onscreen, ignoring my threat entirely. I got the feeling he really couldn't care less what I called him – I probably could have called him Pooh-Bah, for all that he cared.

Then, he threw all eyes forward. Andalites do not normally do that unless something's important – at least, the ones I know who are all part of the military. His tail shot up to his shoulders – not ready for a fight, but alert. Fully awake.

"What is it?" I asked impatiently. If it was important, he needed to be telling us, and he needed to be telling us now.

‹It is a team. Andalite and human, on one of the prototype Earth ships. Four crew, a small vessel. They had engine failure and the Skrit Na found them! They – the Skrit Na are attempting to trade them off to a zoo. And of course keep the technology which they can sell off the black market.›

"I don't get it," Leah said irritably. She hadn't had a chance to sleep yet, so she wasn't happy about what was starting to sound like a mission. "Why can't the Andalites just fight their way out?"

‹The improviso,› Ax explained. Patiently, all things considered. ‹Since they are in _Kelbrid _space now, they cannot fight for control of the spacecraft without causing political unease and perhaps even beginning a fight.›

"What about the _Kelbrid_?" I asked, "Can you, I don't know, surf around transmissions? See if they're giving Andalites permission to go after the crew? Or if the _Kelbrid _are going to go and get them? I mean, it's not the crew's fault they're out here."

‹Prince Jake, it is unlikely a decision would be made for months regarding the matter. More importantly, the spacecraft is relatively nearby. I believe we should look for them. Besides, perhaps someone will have seen the Blade Ship.›

I paused. It was true. Someone might know something. Failing that, we might bump into something on the way.

"Well," Marco said, jolting everyone, "If we go and find the human ship, we'll also have some more human rations until Ondrean gives us a call."

"Also – I _totally _startled you, Ax."

‹Did not,› Ax said defensively. Everyone knew it was a lie though, so Marco grinned.

"This will forever be known as the say humans snuck up on Andalites for the first time without morphing."

‹Did not!›

‹Did so. Look, are we going or not?› Tobias asked irritably.

Leah, Ax and I just gawked. We'd been trying to keep quiet.

‹Oh, come _on_,› Tobias said, exasperated, ‹Ax-man was talking in public thought-speak the _entire time. _When you're asleep it's like a megaphone in your head! So either we're going, and we're going _right now_, or we're not and I'm going back to sleep.›

Marco stifled a giggle. "You gave it away, Bir- uh, well, Tobias."

Tobias didn't seem particularly sensitive or upset about the near shot – his old name from being trapped in hawk morph.

Everything different. Everything the same. I wasn't sure what was going on, but Tobias seemed to be handling his status way differently than he would have back when he first turned hawk. Or how I would have imagined him acting when he realized he wasn't going to be able to morph ever again.

"Okay," I said, "Let's vote. My personal opinion is that we go – we can't leave humans and Andalites stuck as a zoo exhibit for a few months on end for the sake of politics."

"Go," Leah said, "Maybe they'll have some supplies I – I mean, _we_ – need."

Marco and I stared at her. Leah turned red.

"Uhm. Okay," Marco laughed, but he didn't comment further. "I say we go for the supplies Leah – I mean _we – _need -"

Leah turned redder. I felt fairly sorry for her. Attempted really hard to not start giggling. At the idea of what could consist as an emergency out in the far regions of space.

"And because maybe some of them would be interested in helping us out as crew," he finished. Pleased with himself for finding something he could probably use against Leah the rest of her life.

‹Go,› Ax said, ‹The Andalites must already be embarrassed enough, getting stuck on a Skrit Na raider.›

‹Well, we really can't say 'no' can we?› Tobias wondered.

I sighed. "Okay," I said, "We go after the Skrit Na raider, get them, come back. How hard can it be? Let's get going in the morning, though. We need some sleep tonight if we're going to operate the _Researcher_ safely."

Ax looked like he wanted to argue to leave immediately. But the truth is, space is so vast it wasn't like a few hours was going to hurt us much. Plus, the _Researcher _would travel faster than a Skrit Na raider in Z-space.

So instead, he turned to Leah.

‹Leah, what did Marco find so amusing about what you said?›

‹Ax!› Tobias said quickly, ‹I, uh, I'll explain later.›

At which point, Leah's face turned so red that Marco couldn't stop laughing until there were tears rolling down his face. Which left a few highly amused humans, one embarrassed human, and a confused and irritated Andalite to sleep until dawn.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

We got up at dawn. I think. What does dawn even mean on a moon? Is it when you see the sun – which can be so far away it barely provides light – or is it when the reflection of the sun off of the huge planet above you hits?

Normally a moon far away from its sun would be too cold for humans or Andalite. But the geothermal energy for this particular moon had been so strong it was heating up the planet surface – part of why it could maintain grasses.

Ax hadn't worried about it, though, so I hadn't worried either.

I guess none of it really mattered anyway. We were leaving this moon. Everyone began waking up and packing our things when it got bright enough to move around comfortably. Spreading ashes around so they would blow away in the wind, trying to clear off some tracks. Essentially anything that would make it less obvious that we had been camping out. Not that we had brought anything with us from The Cage, so packing up was going to be short work.

"Let's go!" I called, after I had seen everything was packed up. And gave Marco a shove because he kept singing the theme song to _Giligan's Island_.

"Hey! It's a traveler's classic!"

The question after that was a matter of coordinates.

Space is a big place. The same reason for not starting our search right away was always going to be our problem in finding the exact whereabouts of the Skrit Na. Ax had a set of coordinates that were "close." But it was "close" like Chile being closer to the United States than the moon. Worse than that, really.

"So, Ax... Where are we going?"

‹There are two most likely options, Prince Jake,› Ax said, pointing at two spots "close" to each other.

Two planets, relatively close by. And one showed signs of life on its moon. That was not particularly pleasing. Depending on Z-Space configuration getting to one planet could take weeks, let alone exploring two planets. And even though we were hoping to intercept the Skrit Na, we had to assume the worst – that was, having to bust some Andalites and humans out of a zoo.

"Ax, the moon with life. Do you think it could be the zoo?"

He looked at me, goggling. It must have been a stupid question.

‹Which one is most like the Skrit Na world?› Tobias asked. ‹You know, atmosphere, climate, et cetera?›

Ax pointed, a human gesture he'd picked up from us during his time on Earth.

"Okay, that's good enough," I said, "Let's get going there."

So we took off from the ground and entered normal space, to prepare for the Z-space jump.

If you've never seen regular space, you're missing out. Especially farther out, away from Earth. We got out of the atmosphere, and everything turned dark. A huge planet loomed overhead, dwarfing the moon we had been visiting, giant and a purple hue. The sun, distant compared to what we were used to in our own solar system. Stars.

If you ever began to doubt your insignificance, a trip in space will completely prove your point. I had been reading some good old Carl Sagon out on Earth before we had been called on the mission, and the basic idea – that we were nothing but dust, a part of this enormous thing that really didn't care what we were – was never as clear as you saw compared to the planet, you were an atom. And compared to that planet's sun? You weren't even an electron. Distances that not only dwarfed any distance on our planet, but would have not even seen that distance as existent. Light that had to travel for minutes, hours, or years to get from where it was.

We'd been in space for a while, now. Ax was used to it – or at least, he didn't show that old awe for seeing things from the perspective of being outside of the world. He probably still had it, honestly. I couldn't imagine it ever being gone. It would be like someone who'd never seen the ocean walking up to it and not realizing it was vast. Like it could get more vast than it already was.

But eventually, our time was up. We were ready for the jump to Z-space.

"Punch it, Ax-man."

And we blew out of there into yet another aspect of space that was business as usual – but never mundane.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

While I was asleep, I dreamed.

I used to dream that I could fly a lot, when I was a kid. Or that I was rich and had that perfect car, motorcycle... Or a few of those perfect cars and motorcycles. That I was a basketball player, like my brother Tom, before the mess with the Yeerks started.

Since the war, dreaming was nothing but a mesh of memories, usually, and now, I could feel myself entering one again, the anxiety started. Even knowing it was a dream, I couldn't stop it. I was trapped.

"You thought you could get away? Jake, the Almighty. Jake, the Yeerk-Killer."

I shuddered at the name assigned to me. I knew who it was, and I turned around.

The Drode laughed at me, leaning against the bale of hay. "You thought you could fix things. How sweet," he mocked me. Like we went way back, best friends.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

"'What are you doing here?'" he threw back, imitating me, "What are _you_ doing here? Back in the saddle light years away, but you're back here, in the barn."

I turned around, uninterested. The Drode and Crayak were irrelevant to me. I had no reason to believe I was relevant to any interest of theirs here.

Cassie was there, just like the old days, same age, hair, clothes.

"Just give it a year," she said, "See if you feel the same way."

Startled, ashamed, I stumbled around her, out of the barn, looking back.

_Couldn't you have warned me? Why was I so predictable? _I thought, bitter.

I looked forward again, outside of the barn.

Rachel, head mashed in, standing down the path from the barn to the house. Blood down whatever was left, skull cracked in. I turned away, not wanting to look.

"If you tell me to, I'll do it," she said, "You knew that. You always knew."

"You would have done it anyway," I said, "You're not stupid, Rachel."

"You sent me alone."

I began running down the path now, getting off. I had no intentions of going into Cassie's house. Suddenly, Marco appeared.

"You can't fight a clean war. You're gonna make mistakes. But I'll follow your instincts."

"I won't make mistakes."

"You already have," The Drode sneered, suddenly appearing again, "Three dead. Another _nothlit. _A fragile, morph incapable human with the independence and will of a child in your crew. What will you do with them, Jake the Yeerk-Killer? What will you do?"

"I don't know!" I yelled, "I don't know!"

"Her name is Leah?" said Cassie, "That's strange."

"It's just a name."

"Maybe."

Tobias, as a human. "Everyone makes mistakes."

"Leaders can't make mistakes."

"We all led sometimes," said Marco.

"Jake, the Yeerk-Killer," the Drode sneered again, "What you have become since the end of that last war. Did you really think you could take on a new battle? You're a shell."

I glared.

"Go ahead," he continued, "Wake up. But don't forget that you cannot escape what you are. You can't get away from yourself."

And he grinned.

I woke up, gasping. I pushed myself up, and walked quickly to the bridge.

"Tobias, you can take a break," I said.

He glanced over at me with his stalk eyes. I guessed he decided I looked like I really needed to be there, because he didn't press the point.

He disliked when his shifts with Ax were interrupted.

I sat down by the control panel. At the moment, "we" was Marco, myself, and Ax.

"Hey man," Marco said, "Trouble sleeping?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Hm. Well, we've all been there," Marco said, stretching out his arms, "You should have just tried going back to sleep."

I shook my head, looking at the coordinates, "This was just... A very strange dream. I'd rather not have a repeat."

Marco gave me the fish-eye.

‹Perhaps you would like to discuss it?› Ax asked, absent-minded as he focused on navigating. He knew neither of us really believed in analyzing dreams. Unlike me, though, he wasn't as likely to talk about his dreams even just to share the basic stories, whatever they were.

"Yeah," Marco agreed, "Give me something to listen to, anyway. We obviously have to find this Blade Ship... No more tunes."

"You know the Blade Ship's databanks will be several years behind," I pointed out, "Will that really be much better to you?"

"Yes," Marco said immediately.

I laughed. Marco would spend all his time complaining about how out-of-date the music, movies, and other information on the Blade Ship was... If we ever found it.

"So," Marco prompted, "Your dream."

I thought about it, about how much I wanted to really share.

"Most of it was just quotes," I said slowly, "Things people had said to me before the battle on the Pool Ship. And the Drode was there, and Cassie."  
"The Drode?" Marco said. I noticed Ax also gained a little interest, with that bit of information.

The Drode was a worker for Crayak. His messenger.

"Yeah, but I don't think it was a real message from Crayak for the Drode," I muttered, "It wasn't coherent enough. I barely even remember what he said."

Marco seemed to buy it. Ax looked a little more wary, but he didn't say anything.

"So what do you remember? You and Cassie kissing?" Marco teased. At first, he had avoided talking about her. But lately he'd realized I could deal with it. As long as he wasn't probing me. After all, he and Cassie had talked about me enough for him to know what had happened between us after the war.

Still, I gave him a light punch.

"No, nothing like that. She just said 'Leah is a strange name.'" I looked over at him. "Does it mean anything to you?"

Marco shrugged. "Nothing in particular. I know you have weird dreams, though."

I laughed. "Weird" hardly covered most of my dreams.

For a while, things became quiet. We couldn't stay up to date about Andalite or human society, so it was hard to keep the conversations going. Not that any of us minded.

After a while of basic busy work – keeping an eye on the ship's figures, the coordinates, weapons and other systems – Leah walked in.

"I've been trying to do these problems forever," She grumbled, "I don't get it, Aximili."

Ax had been trying to help Leah get caught up with her human knowledge – she had really only retained the things she'd been interested in, since she hadn't been actively participating in school. He had also been helping Tobias. It seemed strange, but they were actually at a similar level academically – even though Leah had gone to a bit of college. She'd really only retained her favorite subjects. Ax couldn't help her with history – one of her least favorites – but he was trying to help both her and Tobias with math.

"Leah," I urged, "Maybe it would be best to work on it when he isn't working."

"But when he's got free time, I'm working," She pointed out. "I know it's inconvenient, but it's not going to get convenient anytime soon."

"Try a few days," Marco muttered, "'Cause it will be plenty convenient on the planet's surface."

Ax sighed.

‹Leah, do not be shocked,› he said, irritated as he put a hand against her forehead and closed his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Marco asked, curious. It looked familiar to me, though. Like it had come from somewhere else...

"Oh! I know," I said. "It's that thing. The thing Elfangor did to Tobias. Remember?"

"Oh yeah..."

We watched. Eventually, Leah rocked back, breaking contact.

"Wha... What was that?" She asked nervously.

‹I have given you some of my memories. _Ait Denme._ Give it a few minutes, and then try the problems again. Hopefully, those memories and information will help you maintain the process further than our normal teaching has gone.›

Leah nodded, and left the bridge.

"Hey! That is so not fair," Marco said. "Why can't that be how everyone learns? It's even easier than _The Matrix._"

Ax looked at him like he was crazy. ‹We have not yet discovered a means for making this a signal that may be broadcasted in schools or other areas. Further, it can be very stressful and ineffective to have someone else's memories. Usually Andalites only use it for emergencies or cases of difficult learning, such as an Andalite that has already needed to be given extra aid in a particular subject. Even then, it is often done sparingly."

"Ah," Marco said. I had the feeling he didn't understand on what universe having information downloaded into your brain wasn't a good thing. I wasn't sure I understood, either. I thought perhaps the bigger issue was simply a sort of prejudice, like I knew Andalites felt about those who became _nothlits_ to escape an illness. Or someone having a disability.

"So," Marco continued, breaking off from the other conversation, "Are we there yet?"

I rolled my eyes.

‹Actually, we _are _approaching,› Ax said. ‹If we are lucky, we will not need to leave Z-Space until we are almost upon the first likely planet. As long as nothing reconfigures.›

This was a relief to hear. We'd been in a situation where it had taken weeks after exiting Zero Space to reach our planet of destination. According to Ax, the first few planets were actually close enough to where the travel would just be a matter of days.

Unfortunately, we basically couldn't sleep during this time – just short breaks, without leaving the bridge. It could be done, mainly because the concept of day and night in space is nonexistent without a planet or moon. Still, it'd be tiring. We'd probably have to rest a day afterward. The weird thing was, we'd probably be able to sleep way more hours than we ever had on Earth. At least, other than Ax and Tobias, being Andalites. But they could more easily handle going long periods without sleep. Ax said at points Andalites would go two or three weeks without sleeping, because of suppressed prey instincts.

"Should we call everyone aboard now?" Marco asked.

"Nah," I said, "We're not that close yet. Ax says we have a few more hours before everyone needs to be on the bridge – 48 hours."

So we headed out of Z-Space, toward the planet's surface.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Everyone was in the bridge a few hours later. It wasn't that hard to stay awake – it was an Andalite bridge, so there were no seats on top of the overall stress of the workload.

It was sort of like the last few weeks of some of the high school grades. Except when we got sick of one thing we could move onto some other person's work.

Ax and Leah worked on either landing gear or coordinates most of the time. Both made fairly good pilots. Marco and I would try to take over the weapon controls, though Ax said the planet had no system for attacking things in space. When Ax or Leah chased us off weapons, we'd work on more important things – monitoring systems or a variety of other things. Tobias usually handled communications – intercepting messages (that he would then have to give to Ax to translate) or ready for issuing communications.

Marco and Leah got hard to listen to, though it seemed like both of them tried to rein it in just a little.

I think if they'd tried to continue their normal bickering Ax or Tobias would have tail-slapped them at this point.

Eventually the planet started seeming a lot larger. Closer. Ax and Leah started paying a lot more attention to the controls and everyone else got in sync. Tobias was intercepting more communications, but nothing that seemed important to Ax. In a lot of ways, Marco and I were the least useful for this particular mission – we'd be most necessary for entering the atmosphere.

‹Prince Jake, we are almost approaching,› Ax said suddenly.

Somehow, in spite of Ax being a captain of his own ship for over two years, _I_ was still the leader. Ax was only willing to be second in command. I didn't know if he was overestimating my ability at commanding, or if he was just less willing to be in command because of the _Intrepid_. Either way, it was annoying even if there was more of a command chain than there had been previously.

"So, do we have a general plan?" Marco asked.

"Yeah, like anything useful?" Leah contributed.

"Well," I admitted, "Ax would know the most here, and even that isn't much. I think we're going to mostly be winging it."

"Cool," Marco said, "The old days. Stupidly running into places, tearing things up, barely saving the day."

I rolled my eyes. I wasn't sure, but I could have sworn Tobias was doing the same thing with at least one of his stalk eyes.

"You saved a whole planet," Leah pointed out, "That's a lot better than 'barely saving the old days.'"

‹We know that's true in hindsight,› Tobias said darkly, ‹But considering the price we paid I doubt it'll ever feel like anything more.›

Leah shut up. Fast. She seemed to like hanging out more with Tobias and Ax than me – and I thought she might prefer a serious case of lice over dealing with Marco. But she didn't like dealing with people in a bad mood and it didn't take many snippy comments before she found a reason to be quiet and, if possible, get out of the room.

"Man, she just always knows how to dig a hole, doesn't she?" Marco muttered, "I guess it doesn't pay to be stuck with a bunch of war-damaged folks."

"She's not exactly free of scars – even from the same war," I whispered, "She just doesn't get that our feelings don't necessarily match public perception."

Marco nodded. "It just seems so weird. I mean, we knew a few crazy Yeerks that got tied into their hosts too much some way or another. But she says Essat did that just because she wouldn't shut up? It usually took quite a bit more than that."

"It's always more complicated than that for us, huh?"

"Yeah, seems to be. Think I should ask Leah why I might have a dream commenting on the oddness of her name?"

Marco laughed derisively. "If it means anything – and it's a dream, so it's unlikely – do you think she'd tell you?"

"Only one way to find out," I muttered. "Leah," I called over, "Is 'Leah' a strange name?"

Leah, like Tobias and Ax, had a hard time expressing normal emotions. Still, she hesitated just a moment before answering, "Seems like a normal name to me."

Marco shot me a sidewise glance. I nodded slightly. She found _something _strange about it. Or at least, thought the question was offensive.

Though I guessed I might have thought it a bit mean to ask myself.

"Jake," she said, changing the subject. "We need to prepare for landing. We're coming in. You should prepare the systems for going through the atmosphere."

I nodded and started paying more attention to the screens and controls. Tobias and I were the least fluent in these thing so far, but since we'd had as much time under our belts as we had, "least fluent" was still actually fairly good. Or at least, good by "human standards" which Ax would still often quip.

Marco sometimes thought Ax just had to find a way to be frustrated so he couldn't get angry at how fast most of us learned things. I liked to think he would get a little less frustrated as we kept getting more familiar with flying and our usual posts.

Well, that and procuring language chips.

"How do language chips work anyway?" I asked.

Everyone stared at me, except Leah who seemed too engrossed at the post.

"Sorry," I muttered, "My mind just got on that track."

‹I tried to explain that while we were trapped by _The One_,› Ax pointed out. ‹It is an incredibly small chip implanted into the brain.›

"Well, doesn't that interfere with morphing?" Marco asked.

‹No,› Ax reassured. We'd had a bad experience with technology not morphing with us in the past, when the Yeerks had been trying to redesign sharks that could be infested. ‹As you have noticed in the past, I can morph flea, fly, and other insects with no difficulty.›

"Does it go with your own body when you morph?" Leah asked.

‹No, like the Yeerk device it stays with your body – it was not designed for traveling with morphing. It only works in close physical proximity to what it is translating.›

"Will Ondrean manage to get some?" Marco wondered.

‹Actually,› Ax said, ‹If we are truly fortunate there will be translation chips available on this planet we are about to land on. Honestly, I am not sure I could tolerate months more of being the only person available to understand transmissions.›

‹Why can't the ship translate for us?› Tobias asked.

Ax rolled his stalk eyes back toward Tobias. ‹If every Andalite that goes into space is commissioned a translation chip, why would we make it so the ship automatically translates? We only focused on military decoding in the case of Yeerks.›

"So, basically, you Andalites just sort of blanked out on the idea that on-board translation might be useful?" Marco put in helpfully.

‹Yeah, basically,› Tobias threw in.

Ax ground a hoof into the floor. Then nearly stumbled as the the _Researcher_ started hitting some major turbulence.

"Heeeey, we're gonna need to start focusing on the landing here," Leah said suddenly, "We're at the atmosphere!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Chances are you've never been through the Earth's atmosphere beyond the troposphere.

Let alone any other planet's atmosphere.

And we won't even touch being in space.

There is pretty much no friction in space. If you're a total snob about it you can argue that there has to be some infinitesimal amount of friction because there's dust and other particles floating through space, I guess, but generally speaking – if you're moving in space, you're not stopping, if you're stopped in space, you're not moving. Or... something like that, according to Ax. Basically, it's a very large jump.

And if you drop out into an atmosphere? You'd better be traveling with good equipment. Fortunately, our craft was an Andalite vessel, and they're generally built very well. Even the current things being built on Earth were fairly sturdy.

Still, it's a crazy ride. I could feel the tension, the heat as we sank back into a planet's atmosphere. And there was going through the atmospheric layers, too. They're not all the same – some super-heated, others super-cooled, some super windy, and most planets have a few of those layers. And that's just assuming you have the standard solid-planet atmosphere that seems to be common among a lot of planets supporting life.

So Ax made sure there were no toxic gases for Andalites or humans – a test he actually could find out by using the _Researcher_'sequipment, and a sample of DNA from each of us (individually, it made sure none of us were badly allergic). After making sure it was safe, he tried to make sure that we had a smooth landing.

This is not a realistic hope for those entering a planet on even fairly modern Andalite technology – at least, not on a smaller spacecraft. Ax said a Dome Ship would have been a much smoother entrance.

"I Th-thi-think I'm g-g-gonna huuuuuurrrrrrl," Marco moaned. Paler than normal, with a sick, almost green tinge. Tobias was an Andalite but frankly, he looked about the same.

Ax, Leah and I more or less looked fine. At least, we looked better off than Marco and Tobias. Ax was used to space travel. Leah apparently was used to turbulence, even though her familiarity was less than Ax's – she'd still been out in space for a while.

I sat around at my post and guessed I was defective for not turning green and possibly blowing chunks all over my control system.

Still, the landing was actually uneventful, the turbulence predictable.

Ax had gotten a signal of where incoming spacecraft could land and had heeded the message. The planet was hot during the day, and cold at night – and prone to bad wind storms and humidity. So staying close to the city as other travelers did seemed like a good idea. And he was very hopeful that we would find translator chips that had been smuggled after the war.

This wasn't typical of Ax – but we were already outside of the rule-book just leaving Andalite space in order to get him. Translator chips were going to be difficult for Ondrean to procure – even if the Andalite and human governments were unofficially on our side about anything. Needing him as a translator was working poorly, and it was driving him insane.

Getting adequate sleep as an Andalite was apparently harder than I'd thought.

The _Researcher _landed well in the end though, and we stayed inside while one of the planet's famous wind storms ripped around us. Stronger than most Santa Ana winds in California, but not quite the strength of a tornado or hurricane. Still, Ax said that the dust and other fragments blown by the wind could cause some minor injuries.

"We should get clothes while we're here," Leah said, "We're dressed poorly for really hot or windy environments. And our clothes are shredded a lot from _The One_."

Marco nodded, and I agreed. There were only three of us really needing to wear clothes – Ax and Tobias were okay. But the three of us that were worried about it were going to have a hard time with wind blowing sand or dirt around at a high speed. It would hurt our eyes, our legs, our arms.

"So what's your thought?"

Leah paused. "I think we should go for loose, full-body covering if we get a chance. In the United States and a lot of the western world we wear less when it's hot. But for wind and high temperatures? Better covering is better protection from the sun and whatever the wind might be throwing at you."

"Besides," Marco added, "None of us really know how to sew or knit or anything else with fabric. And the tools we find will probably be similar, but maybe not designed for human – or Andalite – fingers or hands. Loose simple clothing might be better."

"Cool. The Jedi look," I said.

Marco pretended to pull out a Jedi light saber, grinned, and put his imaginary weapon back.

"Now, onto more important business," I said, "Ax needs to come with us, but obviously he will need to be human because Andalites are not allowed in _Kelbrid _space unless we want to start a war -"

"Yadda yadda yadda," Marco interjected.

"So it should be me, Marco, and Ax," I continued. "Tobias stays here because he's a _nothlit _in Andalite form. If they find him, we'll explain he's not Andalite, but _nothlit_."

Tobias stayed silent.

"Leah is good enough managing the ship to help us out if necessary, so -"

‹Prince Jake,› Ax said excitedly, ‹I am getting an incoming message from a merchant.›

I felt my eyes narrow.

"Just marching up to every incoming visitor?" I asked dubiously.

Ax blinked quickly, but then continued. ‹I was asking about translator chips,› he admitted. ‹I found a merchant that has a few, which we can take and implant.›

‹And?› Tobias said. ‹We don't exactly have any money – or anything we can afford to trade. And they're illegal contraband, smuggled illegally from a past war zone, from a forbidden area of space for this region of the universe. Exactly how are we going to afford these translator chips?›

‹They have offered a trade – one of us works for few days as the others get the chips. The temporary worker gets one, of course, and then at the end of the term we leave.›

I felt my stomach sinking. Some things sound too simple and altruistic – and getting something so pricey for a few days work? A few days of servitude? It sounded wrong, and it sounded misleading.

"I don't like this," Marco said.

"Me neither," Leah said nervously. "But we do need those chips for everyone, right?"

‹Not just for Ax's sake,› Tobias added, ‹We're trying to find some humans and Andalites being sold to a zoo. We're going to have to be able to ask around. It can't just be Ax talking while no one else knows what's going on.›

I sighed. If we didn't take this opportunity, it was possible we wouldn't get them ever – legally or otherwise. It was a bad idea where the choice of not taking it was pretty much just as bad as the one of listening to it.

"So who is this person?" I asked Ax.

‹'Sitionio,'› Ax said. ‹Or at least, that is the name he supplied me when I said we were human travelers – apparently the actual name would not be pronounceable to many verbal languages. He also said to warn you all not to be frightened.›

"Cool," Marco said. "I'm completely reassured and jazzed. Human nickname with a bad attempt at sounding Italian. Has to have a sense of humor, at least."

"Why would we be frightened?" Leah asked.

Ax shrugged. ‹I do not know. He will come out here when the sand storm starts, if I send a message to him requesting it.›

"Vote," I said. "I hate to say it, but this can't be put off. So I'm voting 'Yes.'"

"Yeah," said Marco.

One by one, everyone agreed. We would listen to Sitonio, but unless the demands were out of line – better to take it than leave it.

So we waited. There wasn't much to do. We'd brought some entertainment on our first ship, which we'd lost in battle. So no cards, or other games. No movies, saved TV shows, or books. I hoped we could find some other human things in whatever bazaar or other shopping location we could find.

But we did find some things to do. "Twenty Questions"? Played it – Ax watching and trying to understand – but we had differing ideas of famous, and he would include Andalites. "Snaps"? Played it. "Two Truths and a Lie" went on for a while – a game Leah had learned from some sleepaway camp in the past. Any game that didn't require throwing things or being outside was acceptable. And just when we thought the dust storm would never end, Ax got a signal.

He looked at me. I nodded, and he initiated communication again with the town, calling over Sitonio.

Less than half an hour later, we were exiting the spacecraft – except for Tobias – to greet this person. Ax, of course, as a human – morphing instead of showing himself as Andalite.

Sitonio was right that we would have not been able to pronounce his name. And that being frightened was a possibility. He was built like a giant beetle, almost reminding me of a dung beetle. He looked like he had an exoskeleton, his body shiny and golden. He had compound eyes – six of them, and antennae that looked like they were not really functional. Large, gossamer wings on his back beat what seemed uselessly, and while he didn't have six limbs like Earth insects he did have the common insect mouth, with the proboscis and other mouth parts.

He was always in movement – the whistling sounds actually would come from him rubbing his legs together or beating his wings a certain way. The clicking from his mouth parts.

And I had to hand it to Leah – I could have thought "Oh, girl, she's going to freak." But she was completely steady, like Rachel or Cassie would have been.

Compared to Marco, who looked like it was taking him every ounce of his being not to run yammering back into the spaceship.

Marco's a brave guy, but he nearly became a _nothlit _with the body of a giant flea once. And nearly died as a cockroach another time.

I had a feeling this planet would be a little rough on him. I was getting creeped out myself – and my worst experience in the bug world came from flies – not that these guys looked like them.

He and Ax began conversing immediately – Sitonio didn't seem to pay any attention to us, either acknowledging our lack of ability to communicate, or just taking command with the person who had communicated with earlier. Ax spoke mostly in private thought-speak. To Sitonio, because he didn't want to annoy us while we couldn't understand his clicking, hammering, whistling language. To us, to update us on what Sitonio was looking for, and what type of work one of us would be doing.

‹Three days, without food or amenities,› Ax said, ‹Five days, with food only.›

In the background, I saw Leah nudge Tobias and whisper in his ear. Then privately, ‹Ax? Are those in human days?›

I was glad someone had caught it. Some planets had days much longer than ours.

They chatted a while longer. Ax seemed to get more spirited, making movements that seemed slightly offensive or antagonistic. Leah looked distressed, stiff. Ready to run..

She seemed to really hate people arguing or looking upset.

Then Ax responded to us. ‹Their days,› he grated, ‹It would be three times Earth's length. But he is willing to help us look for the humans. And there is another complication. Because of prior encounters with the Helmacrons, they have some pieces of technology that can detect morphing energy. So he has said only Leah may be sent to do work – they apparently have had issues with people escaping their dues using the technology.›

There were a few things that I knew I should think about, but I was frustrated enough already needing Ax to understand the most basic conversations with aliens. I could have thought of the effort to keep people morph-capable from working, or the concern of "escape" which in a decent work field shouldn't have been an issue. I could have thought that it wasn't nice to demand a species that needed sleep about three times as much as the native inhabitants to work in shifts that were going to be three times as long – a three day shift by itself was going to be nine days total.

I could have wondered why Leah looked so worried and aggravated.

"Leah, can you do it?"

She tried to smile. "It's nine or fifteen days. Nothing to it."

I could have worried more about this.

But at the time, I didn't.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Sitonio led Ax, Marco, Leah and I to the place where cash was exchanged for temporary labor. I noted plenty of restrooms as we went by – or what I thought were restrooms, even if they were designed for these large insect-like creatures. Ax would have an easy time demorphing frequently – and if anyone questioned his need to excuse himself often, Marco and I figured we could make up some disorder that led to a frequent need to use the restroom or otherwise gain some privacy.

The area was odd. The terrain didn't seem like anything I was really used to on Earth. There were lots of tropical areas to what I perceived as "North" - places I could almost feel the humidity from where I was – and other areas that seemed dry, grassy, but with lots of water. But the cities of this planet seemed to sit around in the desert – often much farther from water.

Ax and Sitonio spoke often – I thought he might be asking questions about our environment – but I couldn't understand what they said. Or anyone else. I just had to speculate – a lot of places were uncovered – because this species didn't have good eyesight? Would they have a hard time finding their way in most enclosed areas?

I had no idea. The only places I saw with enclosed quarters were places for workers from other planets. Which made sense – a lot of other planets required shelter and enclosure. Andalites, while often mocking human houses or clothes, were actually more of a minority in being an advanced species that didn't create more elaborate shelters. Not because all other species loved big cities, or because sleeping outside was considered a poor choice – but because a lot of species didn't have all the awesome defense mechanisms of Andalites.

Or at least, they didn't seem to as far as I could tell.

Marco walked up to me. "I don't like this," he said. "Maybe we should just nicely say 'no' and head back to the ship. Try to pick up Andalite DNA to figure out where the 'merchandise' is."

"Shhhh," I snapped, cross. "Marco, keep it down. I really doubt the guys that _sell _translator chips don't _use _translator chips."

He shut up. Then, again. "All I'm saying is -"

"Look," Leah whispered, coming up and scaring both of us. She seemed to have really good hearing – until I remembered the wind was probably helping her out. "I agree that the situation stinks. And I don't trust it. But you guys -"

"'You guys'?" Marco said skeptically.

"_We _need those chips," she hissed. "If they do anything foul, you'll just bust me out, right? You have morphing power. They're not going to get in our way by doing something stupid. Right?"

Ax glanced quickly back our way, then continued talking.

_Duh_, I thought, _Ax is speaking English, as a human. Of course Sitonio has a translator chip._

"All I know for now," I muttered, "Is that we need to shut up and not speak of anything even remotely threatening."

So we kept following Ax and Sitonio, being silent, not even speaking about the random useless stuff we might normally talk about every day. Leah and Marco were obviously tired, thirsty.

Eventually, we reached a nice building Ax informed us was the "registration" building, where we would also get cash for our services. Half now, half later. In our case, that meant two translator chips and money for food and water.

"I guess that means you and Leah," Marco said.

"I'm good, actually," Leah said, "I'm sure they don't need me to have my own translator chip while working with a lot of aliens who probably also don't have translator chips."

"Yes," Ax said, "That is essentially what Sitonio said. He recommends you and Marco installing the chips so you can spread out faster. When we're back we can retrieve the rest and collect Leah."

We approached a line. Sitonio walked – or wobbled – off while Ax rounded and joined us in line with Leah. I felt a little weird, like we were parents guiding her around her first day at a school. But we couldn't start without translator chips – at least, not efficiently.

As we moved down the line, Leah suddenly stuck out her left hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked curiously.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Sticking my hand out for the tattoo. _Duh_."

Tattoo? My eyes narrowed. "I didn't hear anything about a tattoo." And it was another thing that went on my "things that should be bothering me, but aren't" list.

"Jake, look at the line."

Sure enough, people moving down the line were getting a mark on a hand, shoulder, or other widely visible place. Still, to me it didn't really look like a tattoo – more like when you're leaving an amusement park to go get something out of the car.

"Why did you say 'tattoo'?" Marco said. "It looks like a stamp to me."

"I get words mixed up sometimes," Leah said. She'd managed to call all of us "she" or "her" accidentally at least once – not to mention names and certain nouns. So I had an easy enough time believing her on that count.

"Leah would be correct, anyway, incidentally," Ax said. "It is a tattoo, separating workers from visitors. Leah will be required to wear one, and we will not."

I felt what seemed like a rock landing in my stomach – like my intestines were getting heavy, with stress. I met Marco's gaze, and Ax's, and none of us seemed very comfortable with what was going on. And I could tell Leah was worried too, but she seemed insistent that it couldn't be that bad, that worst come to worst we'd come in and get her later.

I was glad she trusted us, but maybe it was just a little too much faith. We were a fairly strong group – and we might even come back a few stronger. But we didn't know anything about this world. It was not exactly home field.

The person tattooing finally got up to Leah, and switched needles. I'd noticed they were at least doing that every time – though diseases spreading between species from different planets was more rare. It said something in its strange clicking, whistling, moving language.

"She is saying the upper arm," Ax explained. Almost before he'd said it, Leah had already moved and turned, pulling her sleeve up to her shoulder.

The device being used was held up to her arm, and she winced for a minute until the tattooer left. The tattoo was fairly simple, looking very vaguely like a beetle – maybe a dung beetle.

"Like branding a cattle," Marco said distastefully.

I looked back at Leah. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she muttered. She looked a lot more relaxed than before. I guessed she wasn't very comfortable around needles. Marco saw something, than dismissed it as we walked into the shade of the building ahead.

Once there, Sitonio once again met up from us, pulling us away from Leah. "'Bye," she said, sounding much more calm, optimistic.

"Just a few days," Ax said, to be additionally reassuring.

Once we were pulled away completely, Sitonio pulled out a new device.

"To install the translation chip," Ax said. Now about to get what he wanted, I could hear a little arrogance cut into his voice as he dealt with the idea of Andalite technology being handed around in the black market. Sitonio began to place it against my head, but Ax put out a hand, requesting it.

"I know more about human physiology," he explained. "It will be easier for me to place it. It would do best if already by some of the language centers of the human brain."

"But there's more than one spot relevant to languages," I pointed out. I didn't know much about the brain, but I knew that much.

Ax gave me a look. That look that said, "I know what I'm doing, so shut up and let me do my work."

It's best to listen to Ax when he gives you that look.

I let the device get placed against my head. I felt a tingle, a sudden pressure, intense but pretty short. I didn't really feel any pain – even a sting.

"It is installed," Ax said. "Give it a few minutes, but you will begin to understand what Sitonio and others are saying shortly. Since I have been speaking with him for a while, it should be shorter for your chips – the languages all end up in a database so that future interactions with species may happen with more speed and ease."

He walked over to Marco, swiftly doing the same thing.

From there, Sitonio gave us money and began giving us instructions. At first it was the same gibberish from before. About halfway through, though, it began sounding like English to me.

"There are various locations with mess halls in the area – and the zoo is 60 miles northwest from here. That will be about a two day journey in the human days you described to me earlier...," Sitonio was saying.

I was floored. This wasn't like anything I had ever thought a translator chip could be. Some words I couldn't make out and would sift into the home language again, the Cryhalis language. But unless the word didn't have an English equivalent I was aware of in any way – which seemed pretty rare – it sounded to me like he was actually speaking English.

The same things began happening to the signs around me. What first started looking like alien symbols actually interacted directly with my mind, to where I saw it as English.

"This is intense," Marco muttered. "Who would need to learn a language with this technology? No wonder Ax took to reading so fast."

I agreed. It was pretty amazing. But as Ax was continuing to speak with Sitonio, I tried to control the situation a bit. To look at things and see the original Cryhalis writing instead of English.

I found I could, with some effort and thought. It could translate – and if I wanted it to stop for a while, it could do that as well. But eventually I just let it translate, preferring it to looking at the symbols that reminded me vaguely of pictographs.

"How on Earth does something like this work?" I muttered.

Ax was finishing up his conversation, letting Sitonio take his leave.

"Excuse me," He said. He hurried somewhat to a private room and came out a few minutes later. I guessed he'd run pretty close to his time limit.

"Hey," I said. I hadn't been paying attention to his morph that much, focused on how we were affording the translator chips and looking for these people from the human protoype craft. "I just noticed – your morph is older. But it wasn't when we were in _The One_'s world. How did that happen?"

"Usually morphs stay the same age as when you acquired them, unless you are trapped in morph," Ax explained. "However, your perception of what you acquired plays into account when morphing. My morph is older because I have been around you and Marco for a period of time now."

"Still looks on the young side, though," Marco pointed out. "Quite a bit, even. I mean, it can pass as our age, but with difficulty."

"Yes, that would be because my genetic material consisted of you, Prince Jake, Cassie, and Rachel," Ax explained. "Rachel didn't age because she died, and I have not seen Cassie since she was seventeen or eighteen, during Visser One's trials. Rachel's age, plus Cassies age, plus your ages added up divided by four – a simple mean."

"So your morph is..." I tried approximating. "Wow. About eighteen?"

Ax grinned, slightly more at ease with human expression. "With enough thought and effort, my morph is actually about twenty years of age – at least, I think. Physically, there really is very little difference."

"Why were you so young before, though?"

"I hadn't thought about it," Ax said honestly. "Other than not seeing you for such a long time and remembering the early days on Earth, Leah acted younger. In the end, my own perception skewed a bit – though I had not started off at thirteen."

"Maybe we should get a run down on morph rules someday," Marco said, bemused. "You know, before not knowing these things about it kills us."

"Maybe," I muttered.

"Yes, it would be a good topic while we begin walking to this facility," Ax agreed. "At least Tobias is larger now than he was as a human or bird. He should have nothing to fear."

I thought this over while we were walking. I wondered if I wanted to know. Marco seemed to decide for me.

"What?" Marco demanded. "Are we back to the mass out in Z-Space?"

Ax nodded. "We had such a large influx of morphing related mass in Z-Space when we began opening the technology more for human franchises on the Andalite Home World. The accidents are still very rare, but they have been building up. What was once a trillionth of a chance – or less – increased enough to where we actually had documented cases of morph separation happening."

"And?" Marco prodded.

"And," Ax continued, " I would seriously consider avoiding morphing in situations where the morph is smaller than yourself. We have had people with incinerated mass from Z-Space found."

"Yeah," I said, "But I mean... Morphing fixes that, right? Generates the new cells through cloning?"

Ax looked at me like I was a nitwit. "Yes. But _only if you can morph_."

Marco and I both processed this for a moment.

"They can't _morph_?" Marco whispered, shrilly.

"If their brains are eliminated by force fields, there really isn't anything left of that to morph and regenerate, is there?" Ax asked rhetorically.

I shivered. The idea of being a bird suddenly came into my mind – flying for a mission, only to suddenly have no connection with the morph whatsoever...

"What happens to the morph?" Marco said, horrified.

"It begins living as it would naturally," Ax said. "It is still a morph, but it wouldn't know it any longer – because the body and brain of the morph are intact, but the connection it ever had is destroyed with the destruction of the original brain matter in Z-Space. Of course, this only happens with fairly small morphs. Obviously, a human and Andalite brain are not directly in place when in a cockroach morph, or a fly."

"Very helpful," I muttered, feeling sick.

"Or a bird. Or a fish," Marco continued. "My god, could you imagine?"

"You wouldn't imagine," Ax said. "You wouldn't have any thought at all – or very little thought, if anything was left. Not thought enough to morph, if it became a problem."

We thought that over a bit. Having some of your original thought left, but not enough to focus on morphing or anything else useful. Or maybe a bit more useful, but not quite useful enough to fix the damage.

"Great, Ax," I said. "I think you've scared us out of morphing anything smaller than a tiger or gorilla for life."

"It worries me, as well. But I morph."

"Yeah," Marco shot back. "But as far as I'm concerned you can keep your brain damage. I'm not getting stuck as a flea or a cockroach and not even remembering I wasn't supposed to be a flea or a cockroach."

Ax remained silent for a while, and we walked on. Eventually, I guess he felt he had to try to put our minds at ease. "We're actually trying to change the technology of force fields right now," Ax said. "It will be publicly available, so that instead of incinerating it merely pushes things to the sides. Once in effect, a lot of these risks will be obsolete the vast majority of the time."

"Yeah, well, that makes me feel loads better."

"Quiet," I said.

I looked out, over to the lake, or ocean. Whatever it was it seemed vast. But what I had noticed were strange creatures swimming around. The head was a lot like a frog, but the inside of its mouth and its belly-side reminded me of a humpback whale. It had legs, with claws, and a tail with a fin that moved side to side like a fish. Fins at the side – massive – were helping it navigate underwater.

I began squinting, trying to get a better look. I missed Tobias and his hawk eyes, but I thought I also saw things coming out of the side of its mouth – I thought of whiskers, except they moved.

"Wow."

"It looks to be amphibious," Ax said. "Am. Fib. Ee. Us."

"Ax, do we really have to start that again _now_?"

"Guys. Guys!" I said. "We should see if we can use them for transportation. That lake is massive. We could get miles if we could travel across the water, way faster than walking."

"We could fly."

"Ax – thanks to your discussion earlier, I have news for you. I. Am. Not. Going. Bird."

I essentially agreed with Marco.

"You know, we're not in a hurry, we have three days to five days – and we're pretty sure they're going to this zoo," I said. "We can afford to not morph unless necessary. And preferably? Only morph things that are big."

"We could morph wolf," Ax pointed out. "They are essentially the same size as humans. I doubt much brain matter ends up in Z-Space."

"Yeah," Marco said. "'Doubt' will make me want to morph."

"It's going to be really hot," I said reasonably. "That's a long stretch of desert we're going to be heading into. Not exactly great conditions for wolf running, even if they are faster. But that would be a good option B if we can't get a rid off of these guys."

Ax looked troubled, but he silenced himself.

"What?" I asked. Still trying to stay calm, still trying not to let my irritation with what seemed like a pointless argument to me.

"Well, I am worried about Leah," he admitted. "What we did. Hired work for merchandise and funds."

"Sounds like any other job to me," Marco muttered.

Ax shook his head. "No, it was closer to indentured servitude, or finding some sort of work in the black market," He insisted. "Working to pay off an already existing debt. She has to have a mark of ownership until she leaves Which, the removal of the tattoo seems unlikely to me. I do not exactly trust them to be keeping her well being in mind, or getting her back over to us."

"She did seem a tiny bit funny," Marco admitted. "When she got the tattoo. I thought her eyes dilated for a second. But I mean, she had just walked into the shade. I think. Which would have been normal. But you're right – and they were also very insistent on taking someone not capable of morphing."

Once again, the heaviness settling into my gut.

"It doesn't really matter," I said. "We can't take her back early, we have to pay for the translation chips. We had nothing we could give for the funds. What we need to do is get there and back in less than three days so she doesn't end up having to work more.. It might not be the most comfortable experience, but this wasn't exactly something we could put off. Just three or five days."

"Nine to fifteen human days," Ax corrected gravely.

"Well, let's try to make sure it's only up to nine," I said. I tried to sound completely certain.

I didn't.

But we didn't decide to go back and investigate more, or offer to remove the chips. Instead, we just approached the lake more quickly, more urgently than when we had been talking, being scared by morph horror stories.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

These amphibious guys were huge. And, as it turned out, intelligent. They called themselves Gorasheels. Getting this information from a local Cryhali, Marco, Ax, and I took turns finding ones to attempt to speak with until the translator chips kept working.

Marco and I, to accomplish this, had to morph. To make things easier, we morphed each other – still human, still roughly the same size – but able to use thought-speak for the Gorasheels, who did not possess translator chips.

"I better not come back with less mass than I started with," I teased, pushing Marco.

"Ha," Marco said, "As if. I just hope my large, intelligent, perceptive brain doesn't get smashed out in space because it couldn't all fit into your tiny skull."

So we began speaking to the Gorasheels, everyone taking breaks as needed – Ax of course having to find solitude to prevent attracting attention as an Andalite. Eventually, we understood what they were saying as much as we were – though it took a while to deal with speaking with creatures that were constantly swimming deep undersater and back up again.

They were heavily against the use of self-aware, intellectual animals being imprisoned in zoos – which was apparently a big problem out in space where various peoples visited other planets openly for entertainment. A bonus for us, when we'd managed to finish conveying what we were trying to accomplish.

So one of them, Nunhabju, agreed to give us a ride across the vast lake – which would take us eighteen of our thirty miles.

It was a nice chunk of our distance cut.

The amphibious skin of Nunhabju – and the general desire not to cause disrespect – left us trying to find a way to harness a boat to her instead. Ax apologized.

"There is no shame in chores for the greater good," she insisted. "Our own people had many issues in the past with zoos taking us in."

"We have occasionally let people ride on us while in horse morph," Ax said, putting in an anecdote. "And I had to carry Leah once almost as a horse. And Andalites often ride on Earth in horse trailers instead of demanding newly fitted transportation on Earth."

"Yeah," I said, but I still felt unsettled. I couldn't quite name what I was feeling for a while. Then...

Eventually, we gave up one day's funds for food to rent something that could be used as a harness and an attached boat. When we brought it over, Nunhabju could put it on herself.

"What I'm sorry about – it's not what we're doing. We have permission," I said finally. "And it is for a good cause. But... I mean, look. It's not that we're using something made for pets, or because we're temporarily a pet, that happens to conveniently help us do something else when a new species comes in. This harness – it was made for Gorasheels, wasn't it? It's something that was made specifically to take advantage of them. By other species living or visiting here. We're not using it that way, but we're still benefitting from these things."

"Yes, unfortunately," Ax admitted.

Marco, quiet. I wasn't sure if he really understood what I was finding troubling. Though, more likely, he might have actually been able to take what I was thinking and put it into more logical words. And even if he did understand – or agreed – it didn't stop it from being the best way to get the job done without morphing.

We remained demorphed while Ax spoke with Nunhabju. He kept asking her things about Gorasheel history, and he kept inquiring the conditions of Cryhali history as well. Since he was using thought-speak, Nunhabju wasn't really aware of when he was morphed or not – probably better for her sake as well as ourselves. We kept pretty quiet so she didn't get too involved with Marco and I using "mouth-sounds" as Ax would call it while Ax himself used thought-speak only.

We were quietly chatting about the things we missed most on Earth – mainly focused around food – and even though we'd tune in once in a while we mostly weren't paying attention to their conversation. Marco and I were easily bored with a conversation we couldn't participate in, and morphing when we didn't already need to be in morph like Ax was a waste of energy.

Eventually, though, Ax uttered a dumfounded, concerned and enraged, "_What_?"

"What?" Marco and I hissed, but he hushed us. He continued on in thought-speak while motioning for us to listen to what Nunhabju was saying.

‹Could you repeat that?› he stressed urgently. ‹About the work force and the slave trade?›

Nunhabju gurgled for a minute, passing water through her body to speak more easily – to help us hear she was having to do more talking than she normally would have above water, which was obviously uncomfortable and difficult for her as an amphibian adapted for being in deeper water.

"The slave force," she intoned, "Is one of the many terrible things that has been wrong with this planet since it went into its cultural dark ages. The black market thrived, and one of the things often done is trading items for work. However, they never leave once they go in. What starts off as a job in exchange for goods? Slavery, in the end, much like our own people sometimes are captured and forced to work as dumb animals."

‹But how do they keep them there?› Ax pushed. ‹They do not come alone if they are travelers. How do they force people to stay.›

"The drug, Bushtu. It is highly addictive, very strong. Usually a very small dose is crept in at first, which placates. Then, during their work service, they simply introduce more and more into their work diets, drinks, and much more. When one of us is captured, it is often done with a few loaded needles. By the time a party comes back for their friend or family, they will often hide themselves, or claim they wish to keep working at the house."

My blood ran cold. Ax looked sick. Marco, shocked.

"Oh, no," Marco said. "The tattoo. I thought her reaction was weird."

"I thought she was just afraid of needles and relieved that the tattoo was over," I said, ashamed. "They didn't want people who could morph to work. They were making sure whoever got the treatment couldn't morph to lose the drug without the withdrawal effects."

‹How addictive is this drug? The side effects for being withdrawn from it?› Ax asked.

"The side effects of being taken off the drug," she said, "Can be quite terrible. In some cases, deadly – the Cryhalis that do this can make money on those who do manage to leave – pay to get occasional supplies of the drug, if being without it is not possible for the person who was on it. The way it is done by those in the Cryhali culture the first dose itself is so overpowering that there will be at least some terrible side effect from prolonged drug absence. Did you have a friend you submitted to work in order to pay for your things?"

‹Yes,› Ax said.

"They already received a tattoo?"

‹Yes, she did.›

Guilt ran through my whole body. Ax was blaming himself, obviously. Leah was too busy trying to be useful to throw in her advice. I remembered how nervous she had been earlier. Of course. She'd studied people, anthropology, while controlled by Essat. One of the few subjects she'd bothered learning. She'd known there was going to be some sort of trouble – maybe even had guessed the type of trouble – but she'd gone on anyway, to try and be useful.

"Then my advice," Nunhabju said, "Is finish your mission. She is already addicted. But come back early and keep a close eye on her so that you may know where she is if they encourage her to hide. If she tries to stay, take her by force if you cannot convince her to at least walk you to the ship you came from."

‹Thank you for the advice,› Ax answered gratefully, for all of us.

"Ax," I said, "I feel bad for Leah. But I think she knew something was up going in."

‹Of course,› he snapped.

"So," Marco said, "She'll probably at least know enough to go back with us, right?"

‹The problem is, it seems to be a physiologically and psychologically addicting drug. Or at least, potentially physiologically and psychologically addicting drug. She may not be able to survive off of it when we get her off,› Ax grated. ‹And she keeps doing _completely terrible_ things like this thinking she will prove herself useful and not childlike.›

You knew he was really mad, because instead of talking verbally he'd completely reverted back to using thought-speak.

"Yeah," Marco said. "I mean, if she'd known something was up, she could have told us and we would have simply used our morphing powers to steal the translator chips and save the crew of that human prototype craft."

"Well, we don't know for sure that would have worked," I said. "And we don't know for sure that she knew exactly what was going on. I think it's likely she had a few concerns she should have suggested."

I was mad too. But I decided I'd worry about it after we successfully got her back. And preferably off this Bushtu drug.

"She was trying to keep us safe," I muttered.

"Yeah, isn't it hilarious?" Marco said darkly. "The newbie non-morpher offering her life and well-being. To protect the practically invincible morph-capable team members, as proved time and time again from past battles. Honestly, we need to make some sort of manual."

‹Definitely,› Ax breathed. Marco and I giggled. The situation wasn't funny, but apparently it was too late to do anything about it – and so we had to laugh at Ax saying something in his most human-like tones.

And, our ride quickly dwindling, we continued planning out how to obtain the prototype ship and crew while also hoping to best plan the attack for getting Leah away from the place she would probably never want to leave by the time we came back.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

‹Prince Jake,› Ax said. Trying not to complain but on edge. He had demorphed and was walking as an Andalite – there was nothing around to witness him in his natural form, as far as I could tell. ‹I do not understand why you and Marco are so concerned about morphing. The chances of being on the negative end of a Z-Space error is astronomical.›

We were all wearing out. It was _hot_. Maybe hotter than Death Valley. Maybe hotter than anywhere else on the planet. Geography wasn't exactly my specialty on Earth.

I could have asked Ax, but I wasn't even sure I wanted to know the answer. It was hot the same way Antarctica had been cold, and I wasn't sure how much longer we'd hold out since we were moving _away_ from the water.

"Ax," I pointed out. "You know we can't morph anyway. A bunch of Earth birds flying across, or coyotes, or anything else – we'd just attract attention. Not that many humans have had morphing power."

He stayed silent. Ax wasn't actually irrational enough to think unnecessary morphing would be a good idea – attracting attention would have been an unnecessary risk. But it was hard to accept anything in the heat. I guessed the heat was a lot even for people native to this planet – it would explain why the distance had been considered an issue.

"Jake, if we don't morph we're going to have to pull over. Find some shade. Or something. I've never sweated this much. We're going to need water."

I looked around. There was no shade. It was as flat and barren as I ever could have imagined a place being. Marco was right, but unless we turned back and went to the lake we weren't going to find shade or water anywhere.

I could morph. I could fly up there, just long enough to see where the nearest stop was. If my morph could handle the heat, anyway.

"Ax, how warm is it?"

‹A hundred and twenty of your degrees, Prince Jake. And it is increasing quickly.›

Marco whistled. "So we're going to die, pretty quickly, if we don't get cooled down."

I'd heard enough. "Okay, I'm morphing. Not long – if the temperature's still going up no morph we have is going to be able to take it that long. Just long enough to see if we retreat or if they've put something out there for people to stay at. I think our bird morphs would be able to take this better than we can – but honestly, I'm not sure, and I'm fairly sure they can't handle it being like, two-hundred degrees or whatever."

"Barbeque," Marco laughed.

It took a while. I was already so hot, so tired, that I could feel the changes slowing. Bone churning, reshaping, hollowing out. One of my legs became a wing, one of my arms became a leg and began lowering down. Marco grabbed me before I could fall over.

"Is it just me or is this treeg mea -" my head, mouth, and throat were reforming and I lost my ability to speak.

Until, eventually, I was a peregrine falcon. A really, uncomfortably warm peregrine falcon, getting warmer.

‹Be right back,› I told them. I flapped hard a few times until I managed to rise off the ground, and headed up for a better view.

I could _feel _it just getting warmer and warmer around me. It wasn't a small, gradual change in heat. It was stepping outside just after sunrise on a day that was going to hit over a hundred. It was sticking a cookie sheet in a preheated oven. Pushing in, uncomfortable, but dry.

I circled once, twice. I laughed, almost manically.

‹I see something. It's not that far. It's...› I realized I didn't have a way to navigate them. But I didn't want us showing up as a bunch of Earth birds when we were heading out to steal live animals from this planet's zoo.

‹Uhm, Ax.› I circled around. ‹I'm flying toward it right now. Can you navigate that way to make sure we get there?›

‹Yes, Prince Jake.›

I circled back down, and demorphed. I could feel the sweat instantly beading out.

"We have to hurry. We should, uh..."

I felt like I was missing something. Forgetting something important. But as I was thinking that Ax began to morph human again.

That had been it. I couldn't have him show up at the place as an Andalite. We couldn't risk it getting to the _Kelbrid _that there were Andalites here. At least, Andalites that had any choice in the matter.

"I would think the _Kelbrid _would be trying to take the Andalites at least from the zoo," Marco said. It was in a halting, rasping voice. It made me feel the heat around me even worse.

Or maybe it was really just getting that warm around us.

"You might be right."

"Andalites. Getting caught. This is. So embarrassing," Ax's speech was slowing down worse than our own.

"At least he never tried to play with the word 'embarrass,'" Marco whispered to me as lowly as possible. Being careful that Ax didn't hear him.

I felt like that should have made me laugh. I didn't laugh much anymore, but I felt there was something funny in there. Still, I didn't care as long as we got out of the sun fast.

Ax led the way. It wasn't far off, but with the heat getting worse every minute it wasn't very easy. There wasn't even any wind.

No one spoke for the most part until we finally saw the door. It looked quiet and I could only hope it was a business at this point.

I walked up, past Ax, and knocked.

A Cryhali opened the door, looking at me. "Come in," he said. Or she, I couldn't really tell.

Marco, Ax, and I were brought down a long flight of stairs, and I felt the air around me cool. Air conditioning, or maybe just going from the heat of above ground into the rock below ground. Either way, I was relieved. I felt tired in a way I hadn't felt in years, sick type tired.

At the end of the flight of stairs, the Cryhali – I thought it was a younger one – handed me a glass. I downed it, as Marco and Ax did the same with glasses handed to them.

"Water has never tasted so good."

"The air," I muttered. I sat down suddenly.

"You people, you're pretty crazy, you know this right?" The Cryhali spoke jaggedly. "No one smart hangs around the Plate except for dusk or dawn." He – or she – laughed, and the others joined in.

"Keep drinking, keep drinking."

"The Plate?"

"'The Plate'" he mimicked – I was fairly sure it was a he now. "Yes, _The Plate_. Are you and your crew suicidal? Didn't anyone tell you about this? Or are you working with the Lows? You know, the shady businesses."

I shrugged at Ax and Marco helplessly. Ax was about to thought-speak but the Cryhali continued without waiting.

"You don't try to work with the Lows unless you really need to. They'll trap what they can and they don't care at all about whether or not you come back. Just one of the many changes brought on by our world being torn apart and corrupted so many times. But you come out to the Plate, you die, they keep whoever you gave up. See? Permanent slave payoff."

‹How high does it reach out on the Plate?› Ax asked.

"Oh, it can get over boiling point on the surface. Even with our air conditioning on, it's gonna get pretty hot in a few hours. You wait, you stay til dusk. Then try to finish your journey like hell, because it's only going to get cold when night falls. Your planet must be pretty cushy, heh? Thin-skinned creatures like you." He laughed.

‹Thank you,› Ax said. Politely, considering he was fairly aggravated that he hadn't thought of these things. ‹May I ask your name?›

We got an unpronounceable jabber. Finally, "Call me Jane" as the Cryhali walked off to join _her_ friends, laughing at our inability to communicate in her own tongue.

"Man, we're going to need chips that allow us to thought-speak," Marco muttered, "So much for learning the language of places you visit."

"Until dusk. That's almost three days."

"Yeah, and those guys back in the town were trying to get us killed! Or at least, didn't care about whether or not we died. For all we know they're taking apart the _Researcher _right now. What about Tobias? What about Leah?"

I stayed silent. What was there to say? I'd screwed it up before we'd even started, looking for a way to appease to others.

Marco looked at me almost like he was disappointed. Like he'd seen something he'd expected, but hoped he wouldn't see anyway. "Well okay," He continued, "We wait here until the climate gets survivable outside, then fly the heck over to the zoo and try to locate these people and get them out. Hey, maybe their ship is working and has an Xbox. That wouldn't be so much to ask for, would it?"

"Xbox?"

"It's a game, Ax-man. It was a console that came out while you were all busy being a Prince and all. Heck, it's been a few years since then, who knows what they'll have? 'Andalites and humans unite' and all that."

I watched, feeling distant, as Ax looked confused and dejected at the idea of a human seeking or preferring the idea of a human technology over their own. Or Andalites and humans sharing technological prowess in the future.

I tried to sit down. The seats around me were designed for aliens with quite a different shape, so I found a spot by the wall where I could sit on the floor. Leaned against the wall of the place, feeling the cool stone in comparison to the heat I had felt outside.

Three days. It would be three Earth days before we hit nightfall. Before it would begin to cool down enough for us to move on.

I felt my eyes dragging and my thoughts slowing down. The effort it would take just to stand up. Marco and Ax were talking, distracted, but I felt the full force of the heat, exertion, and the amount of information just hitting me like a semi going down the freeway.

_Well_, I thought, _might as well start off with a night._

I fell asleep with Marco and Ax still chatting in front of me.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter eleven**

"Hey. Hey Jake, wake up."

I opened my eyes, trying to remember where I was. It wasn't the _Researcher_. No, we were still in the restaurant. With a few Cryhalis and other travelers, making way toward a zoo that would have some humans and Andalites captive.

I looked toward Marco, then Ax. Ax in human morph.

"It's okay," Marco said, glancing over at Ax. "He went into the bathroom earlier, no worries there. You had a long night and we were thinking maybe it could be someone else's turn for a while."

"How long was I out?"

Marco laughed and rested at the wall next to me. "Twelve hours. Ax and I split some small nap shifts and let you crash – you seemed pretty fatigue. We'd talk, or he'd go and try to find out something about how things are run here."

I felt guilt creeping somewhere deep inside me, but I shrugged it off, continuing to talk. "How has Ax been getting sleep, anyway?"

"Just.. make sure he doesn't sleep over about an hour and a half, or an hour and forty-five minutes. He's been starting to get a bit grumpy. But I mean, he knows there isn't much we can do about it until we're back on a spacecraft somewhere."

"I'm sure it bugs him, you know, having to spend so much time in human morph lately."

Marco trailed off, leaned back with one hand propped up on his knee.

I lowered my voice and leaned forward a little. "So, what did you guys find out?"

Marco glanced at me, then back down, trying to look like he was talking about something boring instead of really talking to me. I settled back and closed my eyes, pretending to nap again. "I don't know, Jake. It sounds like the Cryhalis had a bad run with local space-faring people and have for a few... well, a few human centuries. People coming in, taking their resources, making arrangements that they'd back down on. So they've sort of... I don't know. Frozen up. Stagnated. Don't have enough control over their own economy, lots of other problems.

"Anyway. That and a few other issues have led to a fairly big underground market, which is a lot of what happens when dealing with under-the-table purchases like the translator chips."

He stopped talking.

"And the Kelbrid? The people we're trying to help? What about where the zoo is?"

"Calm down," Marco laughed, "We're going in the right direction for the zoo, and if we morph and leave at dusk we'll have a period perfectly open for flying over – but we'll have to hurry because of the short period we can tolerate the weather. It's going to get really cold."

"Great. Something to look forward to. Anything else?"

Marco glanced over at Ax, then looked back at me. "The Kelbrid have heard about the Andalites and humans on the prototype ship. So we might have to try to, you know, get everyone out and running before the Kelbrid get here. They're most of the way over to the planet already."

"Interesting. So they don't have people stationed on these territories, or whatever, like the British empire or anything."

"Apparently not. It's probably too expensive and widespread, honestly. This isn't exactly being spread out on a few different continents."

I contemplated the situation. It was too hot to travel now, and it would be for quite a few hours – about two days, if I'd really slept twelve hours. The Kelbrid wouldn't have any such limitation – if they got to the planet's orbit in two days they would know exactly where the zoo would be.

Bright side: Usually Z-Space exiting didn't leave you hours from a planet. It was more likely they would end up a few days or weeks from the planet. If that happened, we'd have plenty of time. Except for the claim that they were already mostly here.

"How do the Cryhalis and other people here feel about the Kelbrid, Marco?"

"It seems to range from neutral to unfavorable. They're scared of them, though. So we can't exactly walk around hoping for allies."

"Okay." I took a deep breath. "Thanks for keeping it up, Marco."

Marco looked at me. "We're holding out for now, Jake, but you need to get it together at least a bit. You've been slacking off. Falling asleep without telling us – in the middle of a mission. Freezing up."

"So? I also was the one who checked for a building. Found us shelter for the next few... Well, the next day."

"Yeah. After we'd already almost gone out and killed ourselves without having a plan. I mean, you're not the main strategist, but we do need you at least to be keeping up. We left Tobias behind which means the _Researcher_ might be in trouble. We know _Leah _is in trouble. Everyone's here to help, but you're the boss. You need to be doing your thing. Making plans, leading us out of the hole we've dug ourselves into."

"Marco," I snapped, starting to get irritated. "I got us here. I got us here, we're safe, everything's on schedule."

I didn't know if it was true, but I needed to believe it. We'd get everyone out. Everyone would be okay. With luck, even the _Researcher _would be fine.

"Look, fine. I froze up a bit, I messed up. But everything is still going more or less like we planned. Okay? I can't deal with this." I leaned my head back again, glancing over at Ax. He had been talking to a few Cryhalis during our own conversation, but he was just starting to walk back over to us, taking a seat at my other side, also leaning against the wall.

Marco looked at me like he was going to say something. I almost wished he would. But then he looked resigned and let whatever was on his mind go.

Things weren't going the way I had planned them. I knew that. And I knew that Marco wanted to tell me I wasn't doing my job right, and that there were things I needed to fix. But this wasn't my home field. I needed time. Or maybe Ax needed to do more of the leading than he had been. Either way, we weren't at a complete loss. So far we'd managed to accomplish our goals.

"Prince Jake -," Ax started

"As if," Marco muttered under his breath. I ignored him.

"We have about forty-eight hours before it cools down enough for us to make our way to the zoo. The direction will be northeast from our present location, with about thirty miles. Using our owl morphs, we should be able to rapidly cover the distance."

"Sounds good. Do you know anything about zoo security?"

Ax shook his head. "No one here works for the zoo, they attend only to this facility – or are travelers who could not get across before the heat became too much. There are a few places like this that serve as halfway houses for those who otherwise would end up stuck on the Plate. The security, however, does not seem particularly problematic. But... Prince Jake, they have the prototype spacecraft."

Marco and I took this in a bit slow. "Wait," Marco said, "Like it's intact?"

Ax nodded.

"Jake," Marco hissed at me, "We need to get that ship. Other than the supplies, we shouldn't be advertising new human and Andalite technology. The Kelbrid will want it – our thing in comparison's a clunker."

Marco was right, of course. Always the perceptive one.

"How are we going to do that? It's not in working condition, is it?"

Marco shrugged. "I don't know how, but it has to happen. Besides, we might not have much choice – who knows how much of a ship we'll have by the time we get back?"

"Prince Jake, I have to agree. Our ship was not located at a substantial distance – we may have more hope using the spacecraft these prisoners came from over recovering our own."

He was fairly careful to avoid the topic of Tobias, or Leah. I wasn't exactly sure what his opinion was on the matter, or why he wasn't taking more responsibility for himself. Or leading, since space in general was his expertise.

I shrugged it off. "One thing at a time. We'll have to rescue the people first, then worry about the spacecraft. They might know what was wrong with it in the first place. Then we'll worry about our ship, Leah, and Tobias. And," I added, "I'm sure our ship is fine. It was somewhat close but it was still pretty inconveniently placed. Trading an Andalite ship for a human ship would be a good idea overall, though. They'll probably have better food, and if we're lucky? Some entertainment."

Ax definitely looked put off by the last statement. Though he wasn't about to deny the superiority of human food.

I looked around our accommodations. The strange chairs meant for bodies radically different than a human's body. The tap for water was fairly normal – basic physics hadn't changed. There wasn't a real air conditioning system, and it had gotten warmer throughout the day the longer the rock had been heated above us by the cruel sun. The people around us added to the stifling feeling that existed with or without the heat.

We weren't tinged with delirium anymore, but I was nowhere near feeling comfortable. Still, nothing I could do, or say. According to Ax, the ground temperature was almost high enough to boil our blood. I was stuck, here, beyond my control.

"Okay," I said, "We're not finding anything else out today, and no one here is really for or against us. But no one is out to hurt us, either. You two go ahead and sleep a while, I'll stay up this time."

I sat up as they both rested their heads back against the wall. They fell asleep fast – something we'd gotten accustomed to, having to watch each other while others went ahead and fell asleep. I looked at the Cryhalis around me – Jane noticed me, gave a slight wave and gestured at a glass. When I didn't respond she shrugged and continued cleaning.

There wasn't a lot to do around me. Nothing human, nothing familiar. No one I could even speak with unless I morphed, and my morphs would often be unnecessary. Marco and Ax, asleep. Leah and Tobias? Probably both working, one less voluntary than the other.

My gut told me the _Researcher _was probably safe. Marco and Ax were less sure, but I knew the dust storms weren't exactly encouraging to the people living here – especially during the heat of the day.

I hadn't heard anything of The One, but everything of the _Kelbrid. _No one seemed very aware of the first thing. I guessed the planet was too hot and it didn't have a hold here. And, though we didn't want to get in the way of the _Kelbrid _I hoped this would be an opportunity to warn them, if they didn't know, about the parasite that was probably spending time in their system. Unless the _Kelbrid _were already involved at an overwhelming level – a possibility for a group that shied away from sharing knowledge and communication.

Maybe someone else would know. Marco, Ax, or Tobias.

Until then, I'd have a few hours.

I had time to think.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

The strange thing was how easy it was, after months of barely managing enough hands to manage a spacecraft, to relax underground in this halfway house. We were with Cryhalis, who weren't used to falling asleep every twelve hours or so. So they'd try to explain jokes to us, or teach us some of the games that we had as options. Their business, history, or culture. The decline of literacy in their society, of medical capabilities.

Their recent history hadn't exactly been easy.

Still, time receded. Passed us, and the day outside was shortening. We couldn't afford to rest. But it was also the only rest we would have.

"Prince Jake," Ax said eventually. He hadn't been spending too much time around me, preferring either Marco or the others around us. "It is now a safe environment for flight. We will have a fairly brief window of opportunity."

"Fine," I said. I looked around the area, wondering what would happen if we ended up slowed down for any reason. "Let's get going."

We turned around and headed up the long flight of stairs that had led us to our haven the past seventy-two hours or so. We had decided we would morph owl, and fortunately, it wasn't too bright out for me to question that decision.

It would be about three hours before it would start getting too cold for us to stay out. I was fairly confident we'd be able to make the full distance before the temperature drop – and by then, according to Ax, we would be in a mostly indoor city, one of the few places that was well developed on the planet – part of being the hub of entertainment for travelers.

I kept trying to plan further ahead than that. To get everyone in the clear. Or even just watch everything below me with my superior eyesight as the planet's sun kept setting. But inside, my head just kept churning away, about Jeanette, Santorelli, Menderash. Whether Tobias was holding out, or what would happen if the _Kelbrid _found him. The people here knew who could morph and who couldn't – but could they tell he wasn't born an Andalite?

If they could, I didn't want to think about what it meant for Ax. I was pretty sure if that was an issue we would have heard about it earlier. In the meantime, I was sending everyone into what could easily develop into a big problem.

No choice now.

Minutes after getting up the staircase and outside, we were in morph and in the air. The flat, dry ground beneath us passed so easily compared to what a few dozen feet had been here or there in the earlier heat of the day. But I could feel the temperature dropping, sinking fairly quickly. By the time night actually hit it was already going to be cold even in owl morph.

After that it would start getting too cold.

Everyone had a polar bear morph, which might have been able to help us – except if none of our morphs could take the heat of the day, I wasn't sure the night would be any better. Even if the polar bear was meant to stay warm in cold weather much more than any of our morphs were built for staying cool in hot weather.

Yes. It might be okay, if we were delayed. Not that I was going to let that happen with news that the _Kelbrid _were coming this way to try and collect the Andalites they already knew to be there.

‹Hey, I see something.›

I perked up. ‹A building?›

‹Look a little to your left. Whatever it is, it's huge.›

I looked. Mostly what I saw was ambient light – light that seemed to be coming up from the ground, artificial light. But it put most cities I had seen as a kid to shame.

‹It looks massive,› I observed, ‹That could be New York City over there. Or, I don't know, Hong Kong? Bejing? Just... a seriously massive amount of light.›

‹Why don't we see it if it's so large? And why wasn't the city we came from like that? I mean, a place with that amount of light? It isn't exactly lacking in technology.›

‹I believe that there must be a canyon housing the city up ahead, shielding it from our view.›

‹And a lot of worlds don't spread wealth evenly,› I pointed out. ‹Earth's a prime example of exactly that. What we saw back there? This planet's obviously affected by the peoples around it having taken an advantage of their own dark ages... And even then, it's not like what we saw in one place was going to be what we'd see everywhere else. It's not like the wealth is going to be distributed. It might not even be Cryhalis in control, since other species make a habit of turning this area into an entertainment hub.›

‹You've been listening to Leah again, haven't you?›

I sighed. ‹Look, let's just get over there, demorph, have Ax morph human, and figure out how we're going to rescue the people there.›

‹Yeah, about that. Do we have any idea how many people we're trying to rescue? 'Cause that's gonna be a big factor in our general escape plan.›

Oh man. Hadn't exactly thought of that. I winced. ‹Well, we'll have to find out before we make any decisions.›

Marco laughed – not a happy sound.

No one really talked most of the way there. I'd noticed there was just too much quiet time anymore, where I was stuck thinking. Everything around me was awkward silence, even when I thought everyone would be getting along. Should be getting along. But it was more like meeting someone a few years after high school and not being on the same wavelength anymore.

Cassie must have known that, near the end of the war. She'd known there was nothing she could do to stop that. But why me, and not everyone else? It was infuriating, and when I had too much time to think like this, I wanted to react in anger.

_I need a hobby_, I thought.

I was close enough to see that Ax had indeed been right – the place was built in a canyon, deep and wide. It had probably been a river or something far enough back in history, but now it was just a place that housed buildings that would be entertainment for many alien visitors.

It was a city. A large city, dwarfing most places I had seen when I was a kid – dwarfing a lot of what I had seen even after becoming a celebrity. More amazing? Most of the place seemed to be indoors.

‹The amount of energy necessary to power this area, the amount of energy for controlling the artificial climates? It seems almost beyond anything an Andalite could imagine. Even if we could probably build everything here at a fraction of the energy they are using.›

How they did it? I didn't really know. But it would have put an Earth zoo to shame. I didn't know about the standards zoos on other planets had, but apparently the expectation of zoos in other places really came out ahead.

‹Well, Earth zoos haven't gotten around to kidnapping sapient species yet,› I muttered. I didn't know what the Skrit Na or the Cryhalis or other groups of people that held space-faring animals. But they weren't going to get humans or Andalites on that list, if we could help it.

Cold. It was starting to get really cold. And we were getting fairly close. Close enough.

‹Okay Ax. Marco. Let's get down there, into the canyon, and work on finding what we're looking for.›

‹Yeah, no kidding. I know it's not the Arctic – at least not yet – but seriously, I'm starting to feel that if I don't get warmed up soon I'm going to be a birdsicle.›

First we didn't go down or forward. Everyone went up, gaining altitude. It was tough, there wasn't a thermal or anything else to go on. Still, once we'd gone up, it would be an easy cruise flying down, using gravity to up our speed.

‹That's probably enough,› I said. Everyone began diving, and the speed picked up a lot. Soon enough I found myself landing in front of a large enclosure, one we had found expanding around the whole place.

I was reminded of the Mercora force field that had been put in place to prevent the Nesk from being able to attack them successfully. Even though I knew here, the main brutal force endangering the well-being of this place or the people in it was simply the weather itself.

Marco, Ax and I demorphed. The temperature was dropping faster now, and Marco's teeth chattered. Ax continued morphing until he was human.

"Let's get inside," I said.

We began walking around the perimeter, to where Ax had said at some point he thought the entrance must be. Walking through the cold at this point was more than just a little uncomfortable – it was miserable.

Eventually, though, I saw an entrance, and a place where even spacecraft could enter and dock, at least temporarily. The spacecraft all were kept at the side, not intruding into the controlled environment.

"This place is huge."

"It isn't the largest place I've seen," Ax said easily.

Ax tended toward being completely unable to acknowledge another species' feats – as though he would be disloyal to Andalites by doing so.

I mean, unless it involved food. Andalites don't have mouths, so they can't be competitive about it. They also used to have no qualms with being in the background of fashion – since they're one of many species that doesn't actually wear clothes. Though – a side effect of our cultures interacting – they'd started getting into a few of the things, including jewelry. Some spent a lot of time on Earth since the war with the Yeerks had ended, and a few Andalites had found the custom of clothing near and dear for them to take. Two had actually gone into designing.

It was a strange world.

There was a door, now, an entrance into this large area. After that we just had to find the zoo and get the people being brought in released.

‹Prince Jake! Marco! Get down!› Ax interrupted my thoughts, switching to private thought-speak. It was his default. I ducked, and looked around.

"Up," Marco hissed. He'd seen it before I had.

Above me, a new spacecraft was pulling down. A ship that, in a way, could almost remind you of a Hork-Bajir.

"The Blade Ship."

I felt the adrenalin rush that had been a part of my battle for so many years. It was there. Close, tangible. It didn't have many – if any – of its old passengers. But soon it could be there for the taking.

"Jake, we can't go into battle for the Blade Ship," Marco whispered.

The Blade Ship opened up. I wanted to morph. To kill everything inside, to take the ship and leave.

"They're probably here for the same thing we are."

It was a quick morph away. Why not take it? Take it while it was empty. Or take it while they were distracted with their own mission?

"Prince Jake, what should we do?"

The strange reptilian creature Ax had identified as _Kelbrid _began to exit, along with a human – or a human-Controller. Apparently _The One_ had some way of keeping things under its control in more ways than just immobility.

"What do we do?"

Ax's voice sounded about the same as I felt: Tortured. It was so hard to see the Blade Ship there and probably unable to do anything.

Hide, try to save the people, and probably miss our chance at the Blade Ship.

Engage now, and try to take the Blade Ship, but maybe endanger the people we knew to be here.

"Could we manage to take the Blade Ship and use it to break in and free the Andalites and humans going to the zoo?"

"Prince Jake, we could not control the Blade Ship enough with three people to get it off the ground."

I nodded. "That's too bad for everyone, then. Keep down."

When I was sure no one else was coming out – when the two who had gotten off of the spacecraft had been gone five minutes, we finally made our way in with our teeth chattering and bodies shivering. Our time was out, and the mission alone had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Sort of just a typical day in the life of an Animorph.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

When the people had left the Blade Ship and we got inside, my main concern had been simply finding the zoo once we had gotten inside.

No problem, apparently. Most of the place _was _the zoo. Some areas were more like reserves, with creatures roaming around inside. Others were more like the cages of poorly kept zoos you sometimes found – the types of place Rachel or Cassie in the past might have even broken into to either scare the keepers or get the animals out.

A few of them weren't live-animal exhibits, instead using holograms or other ways to simulate life forms that they probably couldn't have housed if they had tried. Things that weren't carbon-based, or things with climates so hot or cold they couldn't duplicate the environment if they tried – or maybe it would just consume too many resources.

Things with more legs than I could count, things with multiple arms, multiple tails. Many eyes, one eye.

"There are some serious life forms here," Marco marveled, "Maybe we should be trying to pick up some of these as morphs."

"I don't see much opportunity for picking up DNA, Marco, we don't exactly have an inside connection."

Everyone kept walking. Ax seemed to analyze everything he saw, Marco acted like he was paying less attention than he was. But we all had our eyes out for Andalites or humans. Or information on where they'd be.

"Hey, this way," Marco began walking to an area of the park that seemed to attract a lot of attention. Ax and I turned and followed, to the left, an area that seemed to look fairly dismal for animal exhibits. Cramped. Crowded. People maybe a bit more interested than what seemed normal for the zoo. It didn't boast the vibrant labels of what world these things came from, or tried to make itself bold and in the foreground of the rest of the zoo.

In other words, the perfect place to possibly find what we were looking for. Keeping my eyes open, I walked in.

Sure enough, as we got into the area it was clear we weren't watching antelope or lions. Some creatures, like the Cryhalis, were harder for me to tell, personally, what with compound vision or other eyes I associated with less intelligent life.

But I knew. I knew they were bored, pacing. There was no real attempt to give them an environment. Some were wearing clothes. A few were crying. Often their eyes were on the glass, looking straight at the people looking in. Sometimes they weren't – maybe because their eyes were different, or maybe just because they'd been there for a while.

They didn't seem to have ways to go to the bathroom or anything offering them privacy. Guilt hit me, but we didn't have the power – or the time – to worry about everyone there. It wasn't exactly the only zoo in the galaxy to have the same issue.

"This is it."

"Yes."

I shook my head. "This is horrible. I can't even imagine. But where are we going to find what we're looking for?"

"We should find them soon," Ax said, tense, "Most other species have mouths. See how they feed these people – the trays there. But that system will not work for Andalites – except for water, of course."

"Can we really leave everyone here?" I asked myself aloud. Rhetorically.

Marco looked troubled. "I feel like the scum of the universe for saying this. But we can't do anything about it. Even if we got them out, we have nowhere to take them – they'd probably die for the most part out in that environment."

I didn't know how it had gotten to be this way, but it infuriated me.

"The issues behind allowing this place to continue and the flaws in our morality for doing so would be interesting philosophical fodder," Ax interrupted. "However, Prince Jake and Marco, I believe I have found the right direction – it says 'New Exhibit.'"

I looked up, to the right of the path for the sapient animal tour. I said a few words that weren't polite. "The _Kelbrid_. The person. Get down!"

An odd chair to the left for people needing a break from walking window to window in this horrific place was in the middle. I crouched behind it, looking over to try to get a good look at them and where they were going.

"Definitely down that way."

"Oh, yeah."

"The question seems to be whether the presence of a _Kelbrid _will result in the immediate transfer of the Andalites and humans brought here, or whether there will be a process for them."

"Someone needs to go and listen."

No one volunteered.

"What?" Marco laughed, "None of the leaders stepping forward to protect the peon? Hey, Ax, that thing you were saying earlier, about increased morphing incidents..."

"I have already _said _it is not a matter of higher probability, only a matter of there being a massive amount of morphers compared to the past when it was generally only used for missions."

Marco sniggered. He just wanted to get on Ax's nerves.

"Okay then, here I go. Fly, cat, or dog?"

"You have a cat morph?"

"Unlike you, Jake, everyone else kept morphing after the war beyond what was absolutely necessary."

I glared. My temper hadn't been what it was during the war, and after a second he looked guilty. "Sorry."

"Fly, I think," I said. "The _Kelbrid _won't recognize a fly and assume it's native. Probably. The human would recognize you though, so avoid them. I'd say cat or dog but they'd _definitely _see you and recognize where you were from."

The strange thing about morphing since the Yeerk war, to me, was the lack of importance there was in privacy. We had always been avoiding detection, to keep our identities private. Here, on an alien planet, after the war? Not necessary – except we needed to make sure no one from the _Blade Ship _saw us.

There was one other odd thing – the lack of excitement over Marco's body shifting and changing in public by other guests to the zoo. Which to me indicated we were not the first or only morph-capable things here. Marco shrank, and no one batted an eye. Two legs appeared at the bottom – a very disturbing sight – while his legs moved up to become his central legs. Ax caught him before he hit his stomach.

"Marco, have I told you how beautiful you look lately?"

He rewarded me with a rude gesture right before his arms started shrinking into his body and thinning out to become the legs of a fly.

No one cared about the noises, or the extra limbs, or the shrinking, or the gross noises. And in less than a minute, Marco was a fly.

‹Back in a second, hopefully,› he told Ax and I cheerfully. He buzzed off toward the pathway to try to listen to what they were saying.

"Prince Jake, what will we do to aid the escape of the humans?" Ax said. It sounded more like he was wondering out loud than talking to me, but I answered anyway.

"We're not letting these guys take them. Even if they weren't tied to _The One _in any way – which they'd have to be in order to have control over the Blade Ship – we can't let them get away with some Andalites and humans that probably just want to get home."

"They would, at least, have a spacecraft with more recent supplies than our own," Ax muttered. He wasn't appreciative of the data he found in _The Researcher._ Apparently, _The Researcher _and its data were about the same age as he was.

_The One _and its reign of terror were obviously around in Andalite space for quite a while without being detected. Or maybe the people on _The Researcher _had come to their demise before it had taken their spacecraft lost in space. Though I doubted it.

‹The _Kelbrid _is trying to use the authority of its species in order to get them out of the zoo and into the Blade Ship. The Cryhalis in charge of the exhibit are balking – apparently they'd already been contacted by _Kelbrid _authority and have the Andalites in the back.›

‹How many Andalites?› Ax asked.

‹Two females. A few humans, too. I'm having a hard time keeping track because they're going back and forth without mentioning names. But I think the total amount of people in the crew were nine? The Andalites were supposed to be the experts making sure there had been no problem.›

‹Andalites cannot do anything about issues regarding the -›

‹Relax, Ax-man. I don't get the idea that what happened to the ship was their fault. Apparently they had been attacked by something with Dracon weapons. It could easily be repaired on a planet, but...›

"Ax," I hissed, "Ask him if they're giving into the _Kelbrid._›

He repeated the question in thought-speak for Marco.

‹No,› Marco answered. ‹They're saying to give them a day to get in touch with the people that had called them before, to get approval. They'd been told they could keep the humans for the exhibit – the _Kelbrid _are really only concerned about the Andalites. I don't think they find us humans very threatening at the moment.›

He gave a sigh in thought-speak, like he was being tragically misunderstood.

"Tell him to get out of there."

Ax began to say something. Too late. I suddenly heard agitation down the path the new exhibit was supposed to be in.

"A fly!" A male voice called. In English.

Human.

What I heard in response was partially translated, just enough for the gist. "Bugs grawfa ite all over the tekatu. Ishbelato."

"_Earth _fly," the first voice was getting more and more agitated. "_Human _fly."

‹Marco! You must hide yourself and escape as soon as it is safe to do so!›

‹Too late!› Marco called. ‹Gah! These _Kelbrid _are fast. I can barely stay ahead of his limbs!›

Impotent rage coursed through me. I couldn't morph without putting us in more danger. They knew we were here. Knew we were close. _The One _was in some way alive, and it was out for us.

"We have to get out of here," I hissed at Ax, "We can't have everyone get caught trying to coach Marco away from the _Kelbrid_."

‹Guys, get out of here. I'll be okay. Go find somewhere to duck down, hang low. We can try to get here after the zoo closes or something.›

‹Marco! Three dimensions. Do not just avoid his hands, get to the ceiling!› Ax called.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I rubbed my hand against my face as hard as I could, moved down to my neck. Marco couldn't be gone, couldn't.

Suddenly, Marco laughed.

‹Scared you two, didn't I?›

I couldn't answer, but I gave him a finger that by itself wasn't very polite.

He just laughed again. ‹Hey, I saw that Jake! Good idea Ax, I lost them when I got up here, on top of the exhibits. I'm in a groove right now – Just give it a minute, hang low. I'm going to land on one of you and we can have a morph break in a restroom or something.›

I looked around, knowing I wouldn't see him until he was already there.

‹I'm in Ax's hair.›

Ax and I began walking away, slowly. "Does this zoo have a closing time like many human establishments?"

‹Apparently. Just a few hours, though – by which I mean, human hours. They just close long enough to clean cages and whatnot, so it's a pretty small window of opportunity.›

"Cool. So, let's get everyone taken care of and find a place to hide out until after closing hours. Where will we find the people we're attempting to rescue?"

‹Apparently the back of this zoo is actually back and under. I didn't hear an exact location, though, I just know they're not in that exhibit yet.›

"Prince Jake," Ax pointed out, "We will see how to get there if we watch other places around feeding time."

I nodded. It was settled. A plan, a general location.

Ax noticed a sign indicating a restroom, and turned. I followed.

"I really hope their ship can be repaired. It would probably be more comfortable than a craft intended for Andalites only."

‹No kidding,› Marco said. ‹If I have to listen to Ax's definition of music again? I may have to tear off my ears.›


	14. Chapter 14

It was a boring wait, but avoiding the detection of Cryhalis and other people monitoring the zoo wasn't that hard. It was possible we were being recorded and didn't know – but I wasn't too worried about that, unless someone actually came for us. If that were the case, well, the _Kelbrid _would still have a hard enough time finding outcasts from human and Andalite culture. Not much could find an Animorph that didn't want to be found.

I also considered that the Cryhalis and other people being pressured by the _Kelbrid _weren't exactly thrilled. The Cryhalis in particular had been pushed around by quite a few groups of people in the last few centuries, meaning they really had very little reason to cooperate with anyone else. To them, the current situation with the _Kelbrid _was probably one in a long line of persecution and following orders against their will. Why even care about another group asking for help?

Whatever the excuse was, even when the zoo declared itself closed for cleaning, we were still there.

"Hiding in bathrooms and other random areas to avoid being spotted by small anthropomorphic dragon creatures," Marco muttered. "How annoying."

‹We should morph and prepare to leave.›

"The question is, what morph? 'Good' morphs, bad vision. Good vision, 'bad' morphs. What do we have that could get by unnoticed but could also see enough to figure out where to go without the guidance of some better morph? From this distance, I mean."

"We may have to, you know, sneak close enough as humans and go from there," I offered, knowing even as I said it it was dumb.

Marco rolled his eyes at me.

‹We are not a great length of distance from the exhibit,› Ax said thoughtfully, ‹Perhaps the wolf spider and dragonfly morphs?›

Marco turned a few shades lighter. I shuddered myself. Our memories with either of those morphs weren't very inviting.

"Man. We should have gotten a plethora of morphs before leaving. Okay, what do we have?"

"Uhm... Well, the dragon fly and spiders," I began ticking off, "A lizard in my case."

I was not fond of my memories with the green anole lizard, but eating a spider and losing a tail wasn't nearly as bad as the near disaster we had experienced nearly getting trapped in morph.

"Ax and I have mice."

"Is that good enough?"

"I guess so."

And we morphed. Not long after we'd made the decision, I found myself crawling up a wall and trying to listen in. Ax and Marco, in contrast, were hugging the wall and staying behind anything they could.

But we had slightly better vision than a bug, and much better hearing and smell. It wasn't an opportunity to go in, with our metaphorical guns blazing. But it was better than nothing, and we had more of an opportunity to notice the things happening around us.

‹I just hope we can get by without being attacked by some predator.›

‹Or taken to be part of this exhibit. I mean, mice are supposed to be the most intelligent life on Earth, after all.›

‹Douglas Adams? Glad to know you're branching your literature away from _Playboy_,› I muttered dryly.

‹Actually, I just saw the movie.›

‹What are you two _talking _about? There is no way that a mouse could exceed humans in -›

‹Ax! Chill,› Marco said, ‹It's just a comedic science fiction. _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. Just a cultural reference. Breathe, man.›

Ax snorted derisively. He never really developed a taste in television. He still loved _These Messages _and the corny soaps my mom used to watch while we were at school.

‹Okay, right up here.›

I turned and continued following Marco – at least, from the wall. I could see in both directions – and my eyes weren't required to stay in one place – so I tended to move around more while walking to get a better picture of what was going on.

‹Shhhh. Hang on.›

I waited for Marco and Ax to tell me what was going on – I couldn't hear a thing.

‹Voices,› Ax reported, ‹I believe we can get through using this vent.›

‹Vent? Really? They're going to make it this easy?›

I crawled down the wall to them, and everyone demorphed. Even on a mission, we were trying to make sure we refreshed the time clock as much as we could anymore, not interested in being _nothlits _that wouldn't be useful on a spacecraft. Making sure as we started looking like ourselves again that we weren't in the line of vision from any exhibit. The vent didn't look like it would be easy to open.

"Well? Stealth, or aluminum puree?"

"Just tear it up as little as possible," I said, "We don't have time for delicacy, but we don't want to leave a calling card if possible, either. The guys from the Blade Ship are probably going to take advantage of this opportunity too."

Ax used his blade to peel the vent covering away from the wall. I mean, almost as perfectly as using scissors to cut a wrapper. Our third consecutive morph – more for Ax who had been maintaining human form most of the trip – and we were once again two mice and a lizard on a mission.

It wasn't long before I could smell human and Andalite inside the vent. Marco and Ax picked up their stride alongside me. Left, right, down, right, down. I didn't keep track of it – knowing Ax would, and even if he didn't we were all leaving behind a distinguishable scent from everything else on the planet. The scent had been blown around in the vents for a while, but the strength of the main direction was pretty overwhelming.

Everything was going well. Until suddenly, I heard a rapid succession of clicks and dinks.

‹Did anyone hear that?› I felt stupid for asking it – they probably had better hearing than my morph. But I suddenly felt plunged into a horror movie. I was imagining _It_ or something out of _The Mist._

‹Hear what?› Marco asked, interrupting Ax.

.

‹Oh. That. You know what? I don't like that.›

‹Me either.›

‹Prince Jake,› Ax said tersely.

‹Yeah?›

‹We have what appears to be an indigenous creature in our presence.›

‹Do I want to know?› Marco said, cringing.

I turned, facing one of my eyes the way Ax was looking. If I could have, I would have dropped.

It was a centipede. Or at least, this planet's version of a centipede. But it was more of a centipede like a tarantula was a spider – this thing was large, dry, glossy looking. Huge pincers and soulless eyes looked at me. The legs, so strange, where making the clink and dink noises. Way longer than I was, a bit wider. Even longer and wider than Marco and Ax in their mouse forms.

And a lot more agile, apparently.

‹Oh crap!› Marco yelped. ‹We so need to get out of here!›

Marco started hauling his tail the other way. The centipede-thing shot forward, baring teeth.

_Teeth_?

‹Marco, no!› Ax and I shot after him.

‹Marco, you need to bring that... thing... back this way.›

‹This is _not _the time for calm lectures!› Marco shrilled.

‹MARCO! THIS WAY! NOW!›

I could swear I saw him glare at me with his little mouse eyes. But he turned and ran back toward me.

Me? I began to demorph. Not enough to crush myself, but enough to hopefully crush this weird creature.

‹Marco! You should get past Jake very shortly if you do not want to be stuck on the wrong side.›

It was hard not to feel disgusted as a mouse ran past my growing head. I mean, I knew it was Marco, but it was still also a mouse.

Sometimes, these things are a bit hard to justify.

‹Are you _trying _to _kill me_?›

But Marco was past now, and I was twisting to make sure I blocked the area where Ax and Marco were as much as I could. Continuing to demorph.

The centipede creature kept running at me. Disgusting. I lifted what was turning into my torso up high. Any second now...

It was beneath me! I dropped myself on top of it, hoping to crush it under me.

I was instead rewarded with a horrible set of bites.

"AAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

I couldn't even tell if I could thought-speak, or if I was talking out loud. Or if the sound was just in my head. I didn't know anything, I didn't even care who heard me. This thing was trying to _eat me alive. _I felt moisture as I began bleeding freely, and other than that, nothing but the insanity of pain I hadn't felt in a long time. Raw, physical pain I would do anything to get rid of.

I lifted up and slammed down again.

WUMPH.

WUMPH.

WUMPH.

No matter what I did though, this thing wasn't stopping. It wasn't dying. All I was rewarded with was a hissing sound. I'd just managed to tick the creature off.

What? What was I doing?

_Keep slamming_, I thought, but it wasn't coherent anymore. Its teeth had already started causing serious blood loss. Cramped, too, could barely breathe.

The pain... I could barely feel a thing.

_Ax... Marco..._ I kept trying to thought-speak. Or just speak.

Too late.

‹Prince Jake!› I heard someone saying something in the distance.

_Don't call me Prince_, I thought. Irritated. Why couldn't they leave me alone? I just wanted to rest.

‹Prince Jake! Push yourself to your left side!›

Ax. Ax was trying to... Something. Trying to help me. But he sounded too far away.

_Okay_, I thought. Rolled just enough to where I tapped the wall to my left. Stared at the thing eating into my stomach, and the entrails coming out of my body.

_Like a piranha. _I felt like it should trouble me, what this thing was doing. I should be upset, that it was eating my lizard-human body. But instead I just felt a giddy, distant fascination. Like it was happening to someone else. Like I was watching something gross but cool on _Animal Planet._

"Jake! Hang on!"

TSEEEEEEEEW! FWAP! FWAP!

Heat flashed up into my face. But I couldn't see anything. I didn't really "hear" anything either, so much as felt the vibrations of people and noise around me.

A new, intense pain, but far away. Cutting.

TSEEEW!

‹Prince Jake! Morph! Morph back!›

Morph what? What was I?

‹Prince Jake, if you do not morph now, you will not survive. You were a lizard. Morph back to lizard.›

I tried and I couldn't get a picture of what had been in my head. Ax sounded worried. It was important. I had to remember.

Marco might have been worried, but I couldn't hear or see him, really.

I hated lizard morph. Didn't I? Wasn't there something...

_The spider. Eating the spider._

No, no. I remembered eating the spider. Not being able to stop my legs from moving forward. Running in that lizard gait.

Feeling the legs twitch in my mouth.

Lizard mouth...

But even as I was losing consciousness, I felt some changes begin.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

"Jake? Wake up, Jake."

I looked up. Cassie. Cute, down-to-Earth Cassie. Like Cassie before the war had gone on for three years, and before everyone I knew got so old.

I sighed. I hated dreams. I had no use for them, and they'd never done good for me.

"What is it?" I asked, weary. "What do you want from me, Cassie?"

"You haven't morphed back yet, not all the way. You still have a lot of injuries. You're not going to wake up if you don't finish."

"So what? I'm having this as like an out-of-body experience to tell myself I'm still in mortal danger?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Out of body experience? No. But you are dreaming."

"Can't I just have normal dreams like other people? Where they don't know they're dreaming and it isn't to convey some message?"

"Jake, focus. We spent all day trying to catch this."

She put something wriggly into my hands. I looked. "The green-anole lizard."

"Yep. It was a tricky catch, took hours. Focus, Jake, focus."

I looked at her. "Should I? I mean, what if I don't? I could just let it go. I could drift away. You didn't stay. You're not here. You knew I was screwed up before the war had ended. Why should I keep going, Cassie? What is there for me?"

"You can't let them get what they want, Jake."

I looked up, wanting to argue with her. I'd given everything I had. Everything and more. I wanted to say I didn't care about who won or lost, I just wanted it to be over with. That I was tired.

But when I looked up, it was the Drode.

"Jake, the Yeerk Killer, give it a rest! You're no longer necessary, go ahead and put up your feet. Hang a while!"

Game? Was I still the Ellimist's game-piece?

"Not at all Jake," the Drode leaned in, bringing his voice down. "This was all on you. Let it go. You can be free. And all you have to do is let the thing in your hand go."

Lizard. The green-anole. I looked at the Drode.

I hoped I wasn't a game-piece anymore. I hoped this was all just a dream.

But I didn't believe in basing my decisions on hope by itself. I'd been around too much to believe anything out there would take care of itself for me. Unimportance wasn't a legitimate excuse.

"Drode? If you're really here, I hope you will relay to Crayak that he needs to go screw himself. You can tell the same thing to the Ellimist, too."

I focused on the green-anole lizard as hard as I could. I felt the changes, felt myself gaining consciousness, and left the dream behind.

In many ways, it was the weirdest morph ever, because I was purposefully using the memory of acquiring my morph to actually become that animal while unconscious.

Fortunately, this didn't seem to be a problem in my regular dreams – or whatever this experience was.

I heard Marco react to my body shrinking and changing back completely into the green-anole lizard.

"Jake! Jake! You're alive!" Marco said.

Ax came up, still in Andalite form. ‹Prince Jake, you are almost out of time for that morph. You must demorph again. You have less than five minutes.›

‹Did we alert anyone with that racket we were making in the vent?›

‹No, Prince Jake, we did not. At least, no one that actually would have cared. It appears no staff was present in the room at the time we met that... Animal.›

"Though obviously remaining inconspicuous is out the window as soon as someone sees this room," Marco added.

Demorphing took a lot longer than usual. I was still tired from the blood loss and other injuries I had taken in the vent. Injuries disappeared when morphing. But even so, it could cause a lot of extra fatigue.

I eventually got up on my own two feet again. Looked around the dank, empty room. It looked like it would normally be a control center.

"By the way, Jake? Thanks. You saved our butts."

"Where is that... That thing?"

Marco pointed to an area on the ground that had a dracon burn – nothing else to be seen, after the damage. "Ax cut it out of you – not that delicately either. Then he burned that nasty worm into the ground. I mean, along with a few feet of your lower intestines. That thing was like -"

"A piranha. Yeah. I had that thought when it was eating my stomach, before I passed out."

"Oooooookay. More than I needed to know. I guess we should just be glad that thing didn't travel in a group. We would have been toast."

I changed the subject instead of staying with the subject of my latest near-death experience. "Do you know where anything important is?"

Marco grinned at me. "Actually... Yes. The humans and Andalites are even together, near their spaceship. The maintenance crew is sort of waiting for the _Kelbrid _to come and pick them up, but they're late. Actually fairly late, for some reason."

I didn't like that. Space travel could be unpredictable, but since there were already a lot of complications involved with other factors, it hit me as a concern.

"Okay, then lead the way. Let's get everyone out of here."

Ax led the way, weaving through the building like he'd been born there.

"Ax found a map with the structure of the zoo in that room," Marco explained, "It didn't take him long to make sense of it."

Down, left, right, down again. I wasn't sure how long we'd been walking, but eventually, I heard crying.

Human crying.

"This way!" I began walking in the direction I'd heard crying from. Ax went ahead so he could use his better understanding of the building to find it faster.

Ax began trying to get a response in thought-speak. Thought-speak can be directed, so in this case he was just trying to get a hold of another Andalite. In the meantime, we kept getting closer to what were human cries.

"Shut up!" a voice cried. Cryhali, from the sound of it. "Shut up and sit down! The _Kelbrid _are on their way."

I heard a thud. Someone cried out, and another person yelled, angry. Frightened.

But the Cryhali – or Cryhalis, it sounded like there were a few – just laughed.

"We need a distraction."

"Any ideas?"

No one said or did anything for a few moments. Then Ax slammed his tail suddenly into the wall. It got the attention of whoever was in the room, Marco said something inappropriate.

"No time to dispute methods now. Let's get out of here and duck down!"

Running back, there was a hall to our side, and we jumped in that direction, huddling against the wall. I could hear the Cryhalis muttering about babysitting _Kelbrid _cargo and the general treatment they received from visiting planets. When they got to the hallway, they stopped.

Marco and I braced ourselves.

Before they had so much as a chance to scream, Ax's tail flew, knocking the two of them out.

"Okay," Marco yelled, "Forget stealth. Let's go!"

Running down the hall we went into the room. My eyes took a second adjusting to the light – the brightness gave me a huge headache.

There were two cages. Nothing fancy, just steel bars the same as people imagine old zoo or circus cages for animals. Or in your typical horror movie. Ten humans, two Andalites. I wasn't that great at telling Andalites apart, but they were a bit smaller and thinner than Ax, with smaller blades – I figured they were female. Everyone else looked like they were part of some sort of rich kid club – wide variety of hair styles, clothes styles, and ethnicities.

This obviously wasn't exactly a military operation. I wasn't sure who they were, or why they were flying around on a human craft before capture – but these were not exactly the strategically planned crew I would have imagined for some of our first spacecraft. My hopes went down considerably.

Marco took up the slack of my dumbfounding disappointment.

"Well, well well," Marco said, "Anyone here need any help?"

I never liked being a celebrity. And this was one of those times. Instead of responding, everyone in the cages spent some time gaping like idiots – except one guy who looked as though he had been roughed up a bit.

"Your... You're _Jake Berenson_," one of the girls said. She was dark, maybe south Indian. And had some yellow and red streaks in her short, jet-black hair.

"Hey!" Marco complained, "I'm just as famous as anyone else here."

But I could see she was coming back to her normal mind-frame. She was impressed. She wasn't going to let herself be pushed around by that impressed attitude.

"Ax! Get them out."

"You guys," I asked everyone else, "Names?"

"I'm Kat," the first girl said, "I am the captain of the _Estrella_. This is Sam and Isaac, these two are Jaela–Itstiek-Litso and Lahsailat-Jahar-Sirinial."

She pointed to the other cage. "Those are Jessie, Lisa, Caleb, and Zach. So, you guys gonna get us out?"

I nodded at Ax and Marco, who began working on the cages. I backed away, slowly, to try to keep an eye on the door, which was really our only exit.

"So, question."

"Shoot," I said.

"Why didn't they just morph away from the cages?" Marco asked.

"It is true that morphing power is pretty uniform among Andalites. And pretty much any human space traveling should have the ability to morph. Why _did_ you guys stay in here? Especially when you were obviously not being treated neutrally."

She rolled her eyes.

"And conspiracists claim you guys were _Kelbrid_ spies back on Earth," she snorted. "Two of our crew are Andalites. If we have Andalites here willingly, we start a war between the two species. So we've been behaving and twiddling our thumbs waiting to hear about negotiations or if we really were going to be stuck as zoo commodities for the rest of our lives, instead of breaking out with Andalites and exploring the region."

"Besides, not all of us can morph," one of the boys added. He was young. Actually, they were all pretty young to be flying a spacecraft.

"Fair enough."

It took fairly little time for Marco and Ax to open the doors. The cages hadn't exactly been made for tough life forms – any of us could have cut them out with a Hork-Bajir morph, and the Andalites themselves would have had an easy time if they weren't trying to cooperate and prevent political complications. Everything was still clear as everyone was out of the cages, continuing to be debriefed.

"Okay," Marco said. "We need information. First of all, who is not morph capable?"

Two of the people raised their arms. Lisa, a girl with red hair and freckles, and Zach, who was fairly well built.

I looked at them. "Go over to Ax."

"Next question: Does everyone have a small morph?"

"Everyone who can morph here has cat, rat, fly, and sparrow," Kat said. "We made it part of our training to handle morphing."

Marco's eyes narrowed, "Why would you be practicing with morphs like that? Wouldn't the teachers want you to have firepower?"

Kat rolled her eyes, but I gave Marco a glance, and he kept prodding.

"Why just morphs you can find anywhere in the United States? Why is everyone here so young? And what do you guys know about your situation?"

Kat seemed to look down, but then she met Marco's eyes directly. "We are students, not the intended test crew. Some of our mothers and fathers were going to be on this flight. And we thought we'd just take it for a ride."

"You _what?_"

"We're pretty good with this stuff – we had no reason to think we'd be doing anything more than a small joy ride! And it wasn't exactly government guarded -"

"It was a private industry's product -"

"So it wasn't like we were breaking any _national _security -"

"We made a mistake with navigation, though," Caleb explained, "We got lost. After we roamed around for a while we saw evidence of Dracon smuggling-"

"Which is _everywhere_-"

"And we thought we'd see if we could find some of the people who had gone missing," Caleb finished. "We thought if we rescued some people we'd get into less trouble. And, well, that they might know how to get home."

"But then something attacked the ship," Sam said, "And then the next thing we knew we were being towed away. When we realized we were in _Kelbrid _space, we just tried to be as diplomatic as possible. Wait for orders. Hope someone came."

I hoped my expression was more diplomatic than Ax and Marco's faces were. Ax's tail-blade rose a few inches and his stalk eyes stretched, a sign of intense aggravation. But I was pretty disappointed too. Other than the Andalites, we were dealing with a gaggle of school kids. No one trained, no one experienced with war. And the actions that had brought them here were nothing short of selfish.

And from what they said I wasn't exactly sure of their flight skills, either.

Ax looked at the two Andalites.

‹How could two trained Andalites lose their way in space? You are not the trained crew, but I hardly believe you had no training to make it out this far.›

They waved their stalk eyes in a sort of eyeroll. I wasn't sure if the look was a native Andalite gesture, or one of the things they had been picking up from people.

‹We weren't 'lost'›

‹Though› one of them amended, ‹We did have a difficult time keeping track of things when one of the humans deleted the navigation system. There isn't exactly a lot of open documentation about this region of space, since it is, as you know, off-limits.›

"Okay, I hate to break it to you guys," I started, "But we can't just take you home. I mean, the _Kelbrid _situation and all. It's going to be a bit of a detour. Plus, we have other issues going on."

"What issues?"

"Not relevant to you at the moment. How broken down is the ship you used to get out to the border?"

"On the ground, the thing would have taken a few hours at most, at least, depending on the tools we had access to. In space, a bit longer. After being abducted? Well, it depends."

I thought it over.

"We need the best people with computers and technology working on that spacecraft, get it up and running. From my team, that's Ax and Marco. Anyone else want to volunteer?"

Two people beside Kat came up. Sam, and Caleb.

"We have two friends," I continued, "One is with the _Researcher_, the spacecraft we came in on. The other might need to be busted out, but we'll explain that later. Ax, Marco, you go with Sam and Caleb. See if we can't get it off the ground, and quickly. We'll... Hopefully be able to keep anyone from noticing that people are missing in here."

‹Us, as well.› One of the Andalites spoke up. ‹We have experience in technology as well, and the more people working on it, the faster it can be repaired.›

"Shouldn't be too bad," Caleb pointed out, "The Cryhalis can't see very well. Even if they had a good count on us, they're not hard to take out in a fight."

I grinned, "If only it were ever that easy."

To everyone else, I said, "I know this would ideally be solved in only a few hours. However, we should assume we only have an hour or two to work on it, at most. We have to get out of here before the _Kelbrid_ get back."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

Ax, Marco, and the others left to go look for the ship and make repairs. None of the others had decent morphs, but Ax and our new Andalite partners had lent the morph-capable members of our group their own DNA. It would mean if we really needed to help defend the people trying to repair the ship that there would be some firepower at the ready.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time to get them acclimated to their new bodies, so Kat and I decided everyone would morph and remain prepared until the spacecraft was ready to move. In addition, we had to be ready to have everyone else morph insect or some other easy-to-hide morph if things went wrong.

The plan was pretty simple. Try to maintain the idea that everyone was in the cages, and hope the Cryhalis didn't notice. If they were waiting for the _Kelbrid _to take the Andalites and the spacecraft for investigation, we could hope they weren't checking on the ship. So two of us would be in Andalite morph at any given moment, trying to prevent the Cryhalis from paying attention. Everyone else would stay huddled together, trying to make it harder to really think about how many people were present.

If anyone bothered to count, it wouldn't take long, but if we were right and they were just checking on the Andalites? It would give us plenty of time.

With luck, the others wouldn't have to spend long at all working on the ship.

‹Prince Jake, can you hear me?›

Marco and Ax had been trying to keep me updated so that I'd know if we were still in thought-speak range or not. I wasn't sure where they were, but it hadn't been far from where everyone else had been caged in. Which made sense – the area for storage and docking probably wasn't far from the area we were in now – it wouldn't have made much logistical sense.

Time was on our side. The Cryhalis of course didn't move slower or live that much longer in spite of the rotation their planet had, but there was a tendency to still break up certain tasks by the hours of the day. So for something to be checked every two or four hours – leaving us with enough water and giving food - that still gave us a chance to have been working on something.

Or just waiting for someone to check on us – four or eight hours in our own time. Which meant, hopefully, we'd be long gone before the next person came in to check.

‹The people aboard the _Estrella _were correct, it will not take long to make repairs from the ground. We have already found cables and wiring that should work nicely for repairs until we meet with Ondrean again. Since you are not in morph, I assume all is well for check-ups in the holding center. I will update again in an Earth half-hour.›

I nodded to one of the "Andalites" in the cage with me to encourage a response. Normally I would have morphed Marco so I could speak back with them, but if I did that I wouldn't be able to morph for battle until after I had demorphed. It would have been a waste of time, especially if we ended up dealing with _Kelbrid_. Chances were of course that they would recognize immediately that there were less people. But whether they attributed that to morph-capable people running away or something more sinister would depend on who we were dealing with.

Either way, I figured we'd cut a decent amount of time off of the repairs to the _Estrella _with six people trying to resolve its issues over trying to make it look like no one had left and maintaining only two or three people working on the ship itself. But I was still waiting for time to tell, and even though the hours on the Cryhali planet were much longer than Earth's hours I felt there was plenty of cause for concern. Especially knowing that the Blade Ship had been involved with trying to take the people from the _Estrella _earlier.

Fortunately, at least it let us know a valuable thing about the _Kelbrid_: They were not cohorts with _The One _as a whole. Whatever was going on, it was not a matter of these two species working together. That alone had probably been the best news we knew of so far.

I had other questions on my mind. I wondered if the _Kelbrid _were mostly strong at the moment or if they were particularly vulnerable to _The One. _Were the _Kelbrid _in contact with the Andalites part of the actual _Kelbrid _government, or a process being set up by _The One _which seemed to have a somewhat specific place by the border of the two regions of space. Or whether a bit of both were all tying into the overall concern. If _The One_ had a strong influence, we could have tried talking to the Andalite Electorate and tried to come to a conclusion. If the _Kelbrid _had as large a problem with outside influence as we'd been led to believe, the emergency at hand wouldn't matter much.

Politically, the Andalite government might see more benefit in letting things run their course in _Kelbrid_ space. Marco and I had considered it lately, but we hadn't really had a chance to bring it up with Ax or anyone else.

For a while, I tried thinking about less important things. I spoke with the people around me about home. Apparently, there had been a lot of chaos following the disappearance of the Animorphs.

"For a while, Cassie had been under indictment," Lisa said, "As an accomplice to treason and possible war crimes relating to the _Kelbrid _situation. No one had known about the _Kelbrid _before that, at least, not on Earth. But it couldn't really hold up in the legal system at this point, because we have technology that beats any lie detector. She got into a little trouble for knowing you were going to do something illegal, but since she hadn't done anything herself, she could only get in trouble for not reporting a crime."

"Besides, a lot of good it would have done either government to arrest the _Animorphs._ Could you have imagined, seriously, what the Andalite and human populations alike would have done?"

Kat rolled her eyes.

"So we got off easy, in your opinion?"

I almost felt like pointing out we had been unofficially sanctioned by the Andalite government for this illegal mission, but I knew better than to say anything incriminating about the Electorate and Andalite military, or insinuate that my own government had probably known some of what had been going on – seeing as they had brought Menderash to me. It didn't even matter. No one else in either world had known what it had been like to be ripped from reality and placed, as kids, into the battlefield.

Getting away from everything? Not appropriate. But I wasn't about to say none of the privileges we got as war heroes was undeserved, either.

"No," Kat looked almost apologetic, "I didn't mean to imply you 'got off easy.' I was just saying the whole thing – the indictment, the fuss – it wouldn't have done any good for either government."

"It didn't matter anyway. They could make all the threats they wanted about what they would do if they caught you again – it sounded more like they were trying to just ease things over with the _Kelbrid._ But they didn't have any power to do anything once you went over the border."

"The problem was – _is_ – that the _Kelbrid _will be the ones with jurisdiction over you if they catch you over here."

Lisa gave me a stern look. "If they catch you over here, they have basically legally issued a warrant to question and then kill you. You're basically on their top criminal list."

I laughed. I didn't like the sound – it was cold, uncaring. It wasn't exactly new for me to be on some dangerous group's bad side.

That was more of the problem that had landed me in this situation to begin with.

"But Cassie, they did let her go?"

Kat nodded. "Her political career took a really big hit, though. I didn't get the particular idea she minded that, much."

She wouldn't have minded at all, and I knew that, but it was still good to hear.

None of us were actual Andalites – even those who looked like Andalites at the moment. We had no idea how much time had passed or how much more time we had left. Anyone morphing simply did so frequently to stay safe of the two-hour limit, with Ax occasionally trying to keep tabs on how morphs were or were not going from another segment of the zoo. Occasionally, we would see Cryhalis pass the room, or look inside, but no one had actually come to check on us yet.

We would talk about favorite sports teams, what our places had been in the world during the Yeerk invasion, favorite movies.

"Actually," Kat said, "That's one fo the greatest things about the blends of Andalite and human technology so far. We basically have all the movies, TV shows, and video-games we could ever want. Not to mention some of the best educational software the planet could have ever inspired. I think those things will be a large part of what you might enjoy by the time you get back: For a few years a lot of this stuff was being kept from us to prevent economic disaster. But they were releasing a bit more the past year during an economic downturn, to spark the economy and cut government spending in classrooms."

I stared at her.

"Just wait until you see how awesome the education software is."

"I don't know about that, but _all _the video games, TV shows and movies?"

Kat grinned.

I had a feeling she and Marco were going to get along pretty well.

For a while, she and Lisa went from there to talking about how some of the education software worked, particularly foreign language software. The things they mentioned were amazing, but in the back of my mind I felt something grinding down on me, gnawing away at the peace of mind I'd had.

Even though I was still thinking in 'Earth hours' as Ax would have called it, something was wrong. The Cryhalis still hadn't been checking on us. I hadn't heard an announcement of the zoo re-opening.

When had Ax last given me an update?

"Hey, would you mind asking Ax what the progress is on the _Estrella _and her repairs?"

Jessie, who had been mostly quiet except for passing statements, relayed the question in thought-speak while in Andalite morph. He had been avoiding discussion and had seemed to disapprove of being in morph. After waiting a while for a response, he shrugged at me.

Zach hadn't been paying much attention, except for contributing to Kat's statements, but he shifted his stare from the wall to me when Jessie hadn't been able to make contact with them.

"Do you think they're okay?" He whispered, like conversing with each other would cause a problem.

I wasn't sure how to answer that. I was sure that if it was safe to make a response that Ax or someone else from that group would have contacted me. On the other hand, whether they weren't responding because they were facing an immediate issue, or if they were successfully avoiding attention? It was another story.

I thought back to the Blade ship, and the conversations being held between the _Kelbrid_ and other crew involved with _The One _as well as the Cryhalis. The information I knew relating back to this mission.

"Jessie, demorph. I'm going to have a chat with Ax."

They stared at me as I morphed. I was not morphing an Andalite or keeping any pretense of being any of the captured crew of the _Estrella_. Stripes covered me, then fur. My teeth grew and my spine elongated, my fingernails became claws. Bones stretched while others became compacted, my lungs grew, my nose turned wet and cold.

In less than two minutes – a skill that could only happen for those few morphers experienced enough – I was a fully grown Siberian tiger. Muscles of liquid steel ready to coil, paws the size of large pans.

I tried talking with Ax or Marco.

‹Ax. Marco. If someone doesn't respond soon, we're going to start busting down doors and looking for you.›

I hoped I wasn't overreacting. I hoped we weren't about to blow our cover because for a short while they had been too focused on something else, or even just slipped outside of the thought-speak range for a few minutes.

But I didn't have much time to decide either way, regardless of whether or not I also had people who were not morph-capable to deal with. And since we were dealing with a situation with three immediate political influences, I decided assuming the worst of the situation was probably best.

‹Everyone? We're going to look for the others and the _Estrella_. I'll take the lead, Zach and Lisa, you stay in the middle. Everyone else, get into Andalite morph and take up the back.›

In a few minutes, we were ready, with the most vulnerable of us in the center where any of us would notice them missing.

"What are we doing?"

‹_We_ are not doing anything. _You_ are sticking to us like glue and not leaving the middle. _We_ – the morph-capable of us – are going to be working offense, defense, and hopefully just preventing any Cryhalis or _Kelbrid_ walking in on us.›

‹How likely is this exactly to turn into a battle?› Jessie asked nervously. ‹I don't feel like I'm at all familiar enough with an Andalite body.›

I knew how it felt. As long ago as it had been, there was once a time I had been disoriented with my tiger morph, or any of the other morphs I had tried.

‹If you need to, you'll learn fast.›

Jessie and Kat didn't look particularly reassured. Not that they really could express emotions well as Andalites. But Kat gave everyone else a look and they fell behind me, quietly, listening for signs of any other species we might not have otherwise been aware of.

I could smell Marco and Ax. My paws thudded against the ground quietly, with the sound of a few Andalites and humans taking step behind me with a variety of hooves and shoes. The scent was fresh and clear, but it bothered me that there was so little evidence of recent Cryhali activity.

Left. Right. The slope of the hallways started going down, and my body felt a change of atmosphere. Fresher air up in the distance, larger spaces. I couldn't see them myself, but my sharp tiger eyes did perceive a door ahead.

‹Ax? Marco?›

I knew something was wrong for them to not respond again. Someone should be able to talk to me. We were close to the _Estrella_, I knew it.

We reached the end of the corridor. Jessie stepped forward, her hooves gracefully moving around Lisa and Zach. I looked at them.

‹As soon as we're inside, you need to hide.›

Jessie opened the door, and Kat in her own Andalite morph moved closer to the two of us. As everyone stepped inside, Zach and Jessie moved immediately to the side on the right, to hide near a large amount of storage containers.

We were with the _Estrella._


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

The area was vast, a mixture of a storage system for cargo and a docking place for spacecraft. Not all of it was indoors, though the area we were in obviously closed securely – which made sense, considering the weather we had encountered. It almost reminded me of a giant Andalite scoop – it had been dug into the ground for its basic structure, with ridging to encourage wind and other severe weather to not cause too much damage in the area. It had an immense draining system, which led me to believe it probably also had severe rainstorms at other times.

There were lots of spacecrafts in the area – a place set up almost like a hanger kept the bulk of them – but damaged ships, like the _Estrella _seemed to stay in the storage facilities. I could see it nearby, but no sign of Ax and Marco. Or anyone else that had been working on the ship.

Even with my tiger senses, I couldn't notice anything that would lead me to the idea of a struggle. The biggest problem was simply there not _being _a noticeable problem. Something wrong, but undetectable.

‹Kat, come with me. Jessie? Stay with Lisa and Zach, but stay low. We don't want a fight but we need to try to keep them safe if there is one.›

Unlike the rest of us, Lisa and Zach wouldn't be able to morph out of an injury. I had to hope that whatever was going on, they were still considered valuable commodities and not expendable casualties.

Approaching the _Estrella, _I saw that it was open. Kat, following close behind, kept her tail arched, ready for combat.

Still, no one. I jumped up into the _Estrella_ and began looking around. Kat followed me, quickly opening a hidden compartment.

‹Hah, they obviously didn't find _everything_ when they were probably strip-searching the ship.› She quickly belted a handheld Shredder around what was the equivalent of her human waist.

The _Estrella _wasn't the size of the Blade Ship, but it was definitely larger than the _Researcher _had been. I was closing in on the scent of Marco and Ax and had noticed that there was quite a bit more to walk through, and the technology was a bit smoother, more appealing to the human aesthetic.

I crossed a corridor, into another room.

Ax and Marco looked back at me, frozen.

"Well, well," said a human voice behind me. I turned around, a snarl in my throat. The image of Caleb, Sam, and the two Andalites greeted me, along with a new human. I assumed he was one of the people affiliated with the Blade Ship. His eyes gleamed, but his skin came off as pale, ashen, and I saw growths on him not entirely different from the few times I had seen nerve endings in videos or certain trainee experiences in the military. Except they weren't the right color, and I knew better than to think I was dealing with an injured human.

‹Let them go. We will leave you alone. We just need to get home.›

A clear lie. The One probably knew perfectly well I had no intention of leaving with it having the power to continue its conquest. The once-Controller laughed.

"Jake, the Yeerk-Killer. I'll do no such thing. The One finds itself too amused by the games brought on by you and your friends. And if you think, after the last round, that it would kill you over anything else, you're wrong. Its intrigue grows the more it heals. And it is sure one day you will be a part of it once more."

I bared my teeth at the man in front of me.

‹Kat, it's a trap. Go, protect the others.›

‹Jake? Shut up. We're not going anywhere without you guys. Couldn't do it if we tried, without the _Estrella.›_

I heard her quietly approaching behind me, and draw her weapon.

"Soon," the man said, "The Blade Ship will arrive to take the Andalites. Probably for the best – the _Kelbrid _are also quickly approaching to try and take control of the Andalites that have been documented by the Cryhali zoo. For interrogation. Honestly, we are doing you a great favor."

I continued to look around the room. There had to be something around.

‹Kat, we're looking for something the _Estrella _normally doesn't have...›

A thought occurred to me. That I'd seen this thing before, once or twice, and more importantly, it was a familiar alien technology that species I'd encountered with had already created.

‹Or maybe it does, and if so that's the way out. Does the _Estrella_ have bio-stasis? I mean, for research of alien life forms? And do you know how to operate it?›

‹Yes.›

I hurried on, excitedly. ‹Everyone in here other than the Controller is in bio-stasis. If he used the ship's system to put them in bio-stasis, and you can shut it off, he doesn't have anything to back him up. It will be eight-on-one, we'd be out of here before anyone had a chance to come in and stop us.›

‹I'm on it!› Kat told me privately. I heard her move away from the room, down the corridor. Loud to my tiger ears, but silent to the Controller. If such a word applied to him anymore.

‹You seem to have mentioned a lot of people taking us. Who is taking us, and where?›

The man laughed manically.

"The One is taking you, of course," he laughed again, which sent chills down my spine. "The two Andalite females and the spacecraft will be left for the Kelbrid, and the humans who are not otherwise involved in this mess will remain here, a token for the Cryhali people and their filthy zoo. They wanted you, you know. You should be grateful. But for the power of The One you would be sitting in your own filth a few hours from now, in a cage for alien tourists, eating native foods your digestive system could not begin to comprehend on this planet.

"Instead, you'll come with us and the other humans will be left with the Cryhalis. No one the wiser."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ax and Marco starting to breathe again. The shock of time suddenly applying to them was taken gracefully. Ax had probably dealt with training regarding the disorientation. Marco didn't need to ask questions to know he needed to morph, and hair immediately began sprouting across his body as he began his own morph.

‹Thank you, Kat.›

I focused again on the Controller.

‹You lied to them.›

He grinned. "Part of the job for The One occasionally lies with deception and feigned cooperation, yes. In any case, would it not be better to come back to The One over living here, Jake, in squalid, deplorable conditions of this zoo that feeds off of displaying sapient beings?"

The conditions of the area had been terrible. And there were many people that had needed to be freed.

‹The situation you're talking about for us is not very different from the situation you have described. We would have no movement, no exercise, and be a simple extension of some bigger thing. But here's the thing: _None of us _are sticking around for that today.›

His brown eyes, somewhat glazed over, suddenly flickered as he processed my defiance. Suddenly, he looked around.

"Oh -," he began, but had no time before Ax had knocked him out.

‹Sorry, Jake.› Marco grated. ‹We were out before we ever knew he was here with us. The ship was already repaired, though. We were just about to let you guys know before he snuck up on us.›

‹Understandable, and no worries – the spacecraft was the mission, after all. Let's just get everyone else out here and move on.›

Marco headed up to the bridge of the _Estrella_ with the two Andalites, Sam, and Caleb while Ax, Kat and I ran back out to help Jessie, Zach, and Lisa, to escort them to the _Estrella _and make sure there were no problems. Jessie ran in first, and began to demorph.

‹Trust me, I'll be more useful on the ship with my human body.›

Zach and Lisa jumped in behind her, helped up by an already demorphed Kat. I thought, internally, she might be what Ax called an _estreen – _someone with a talent for morphing. Ax and I followed behind.

Marco, coming back to the entrance, tossed the Controller out as gently as he could while still managing to treat him mostly like a sack of potatoes.

‹Rock-a-bye Baby.› Marco joked, but also headed back to the bridge, demorphing as quickly as he could while walking.

I began to demorph as well. We needed hands, not claws. Afterward, I ran up the corridor, toward the bridge.

"Kat!"

She turned.

"Does the _Estrella _have any weapon stations?"

"No," Caleb interrupted before she could answer. "We are getting technological advances from Andalites in developing our spacecrafts, but not weapons technology. At least, not beyond a slight increase in morphing technology. So the ship doesn't have any weapons. But we did bring plenty of handheld Shredders in case we needed to stun or kill during the trip – not much use on the ground, but..."

Marco and Ax stared, dismayed.

I felt about the same way they looked. It wasn't really that we were shocked – those things had all been denied as long as we had been on Earth with a general public knowledge of the interaction going on between Andalites and ourselves – the whole time people as a whole had known Andalites existed.

On the other hand, we were going to be dealing with three potential enemies with weapons – _Kelbrid_, The One, the Cryhalis. Four, if we included that we would be dealing with Cryhalis in the underground market as well as the ones that were considered to be running this 'legitimate' zoo business.

It just wasn't a good day to hear we had no functional weapons outside of things to be used on the ground.

Reading our expressions, Jaela spoke up. ‹We do not have weapons, but the Electorate ruled that as humans do not have weapons we considered to be adequate or appropriate for a space-faring environment, we _have_ ruled to work with humans on defending tools strictly for defense.›

Lahsailat turned her stalk eyes toward me.

‹The force fields and other equipment for defense in these human spacecraft are more than adequate to deal with most anything I could imagine another species using against us.› Her tone was reassuring, almost friendly even as she remained cordial. ‹So while we have no weapons, we can hold off attacks for a while going on that and other defense mechanisms we have created.›

"Such as?" Marco asked.

‹A good example would be the bio-stasis. The _Estrella_ is capable of putting everything within a few human yards into bio-stasis for three or four minutes. It is a huge expenditure of energy, but a very effective method for getting a head-start off of the ground if dealing with any hostile people. Not to mention the very effective holographic technology.›

"Mass bio-stasis? That's pretty extreme."

Even Ax looked impressed in spite of himself.

‹And the holographic technology?›

‹It generally makes it look like there are many spacecrafts. It is also a large energy expenditure, but not nearly as much as putting an entire area into bio-stasis, of course. It uses a force field – to make the effect seem more real, and to confuse them about targets. In any case, we can get a few extra minutes if we need to.›

"Okay then, let's go."

Jaela and Lahsailat worked the bridge with Kat, Marco, and Ax. Caleb went toward the back with Sam, to work on the computers, to try to prepare for a larger energy backdrop. Within ten minutes we were ready to leave.

"Power on," Kat commanded. "Jaela, see if you can track down the _Researcher_ so that we can find Tobias. Leah will be nearby, and we'll have to work from there. If we're lucky, we can simply download the navigation system from their ship and save a lot of trouble for this one."

Jaela and Lahsailat worked on navigation and steering while Marco under the guidance of Ax began with experimenting with the controls that would manage the bio-stasis, force fields, holographic technology and all other defense. Ax took communications.

"Hey! Get behind something and be ready to work!"

Kat pointed me toward a seat and I looked at it. It was a station for managing Z-Space jumps. Fair enough, it was a good idea to be ready for exactly that, since it was what we were going to do after getting the others.

"Who had been here before?" I asked, curious.

"Daniel. He died on the way over here. He wasn't the only back up technician that died on the way of being transported here, unfortunately."

"I'm sorry."

‹Kat, everything is ready. And Jaela has been able to detect an Andalite spacecraft not far from this place.› Lahsailat turned her stalk eyes toward Kat, waiting for orders.

"Then let's go. First to the _Researcher. _Then let's get the heck off of this planet."

And we took off, full speed, slowing only turn and correct our direction out of the hangar.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

The _Estrella _was a beautiful ship.

It kept turbulence and noise to a minimum. Its crew was a little on the small side, still, but it became pretty clear that it had been made for being able to travel and entertain. We kept low, slow, quiet, with every mode in stealth, and while I knew the people looking for us probably wouldn't be fooled with that technology long – at least, not all of them – I couldn't help but marvel at how seamless our integration seemed to be with the environment we were disguised in.

Maybe it wouldn't have looked as clear if I'd been outside looking, as a hawk. But I didn't notice so much as a shrub waving with air currents the ship created from what I could see. What the Andalites and human engineers had done was attempted to create something flawless.

Marco whistled. "This is some sweet flying."

It took a half hour – human time – for us to get to the place the _Researcher _was. It didn't look like it had been tampered with.

‹Tobias. We are here with the _Estrella _and its remaining crew. We are here to get you.›

We landed next to the _Researcher._ Waited. But Tobias never came out.

‹Guys, it is ridiculously hot outside. I'd practically expect the sand to turn to glass. I'm going to have to wait unless you know how to get me over there.›

I had forgotten – it was past midday, and we had hours before it would be cool enough for Tobias to be outside even a short period of time. The temperature in this area was nowhere near mild enough for a human or Andalite to be outdoors, unlike the city we'd dropped Leah off at.

_Or at least, there isn't a way for us to get around the heat here, unlike over there._

"Can we get him over here safely?"

Kat shook her head. "We don't have anything for life forms as large as an Andalite. For those things, we have to get out and collect our own data."

"So we have to wait."

I didn't like the idea of sitting and waiting. It left a lot of hope lying in whether or not the _Kelbrid_ and The One would also be forced to wait, whether the Cryhalis would also be waiting. But other than the _Kelbrid_ the evidence was on our side: We knew The One couldn't tolerate severe heat and dry-weather conditions.

The Cryhalis lived in cooler areas, indoors, or underground. So they would probably wait for dusk.

The _Kelbrid, _the biggest question mark, were the only things that might be able to tolerate intense heat. Even so, the chances of them tolerating this amount of heat was unlikely.

"How long?"

Lahsailat and Jaela looked at their information a short while. ‹Two or three of your hours. We are not far from this planet's dusk, at the moment. The atmosphere is already beginning to cool for the night, and will begin so much more rapidly by that time.›

I remembered, from the trip to the Cryhali zoo, that it had gone from intense heat to intense cold very quickly. When it cooled enough for us to be outside, we wouldn't have a long window.

"Marco," Kat said, "Keep a close eye on radar and other information that might alert us to people coming out own way. It will be able to filter out most stealth systems – at least, it wouldn't be fooled by Andalite technology."

Ax snorted. ‹Then what would fool it?›

"The point is unless they have a more sophisticated stealth system than Andalites have managed to develop for our defense system, we'll know they're coming before they're here."

I nodded. It made sense. Marco set the detection systems on.

"So," Marco said, "Three hours. What do we do?"

Kat smiled. "I show you newcomers the ship's systems, capabilities, and entertainment. By the time we get through that I'm sure you'll have a few things you'd like to do."

‹We could play that human game. The _Apples to Apples _game.› Lahsailat said excitedly.

"Apples to Apples?"

Lahsailat goggled at Marco with all four of her eyes. Jaela laughed in our heads, and tapped Lahsailat's tail blade with her own. She blinked, snapping out of her disbelieving stupor.

"Ooookay, we'd better put this on the 'to do' list for after we get out of here," Kat said, grabbing us by the arms. She brought down her voice to a quiet whisper as we walked away from the bridge, back toward the end of the _Estrella_. "_Don't_ act like you don't know what _Apples to Apples _is around Lahsailat. She's _obsessed_."

"It's cool, actually. Ax had his own thing about Cinnabon. The Cinnamon Buns, to be exact."

"Don't forget _These Messages._"

"_The Young and Restless._"

"_All My Children._"

Kat stared at us. "How did he ever get back into Andalite culture? He sounds like he got stuck in a soccer mom morph."

"Trust me," I told her, "We always wondered the same thing. But he's got tons of Andalite pride."

"Ah."

"And Lahsailat? Jaela? You never get any 'arrogant Andalite' out of them?"

Kat laughed. "Well, a bit, but not nearly as much as I'd seen from other Andalites. They're sort of Andalite expatriates. I mean, they decided to stay on Earth and have largely taken part as citizens in the United States."

I was flabbergasted.

"How long have we been away from Earth?" Marco looked about the same as I felt.

Kat looked at us. "I'm not sure, I don't know how long I've been gone. But when I left you guys had been missing nearly three years."

Obviously, we had gone into space knowing that any trip we had would be a long one. We'd known that we probably wouldn't be coming home, even. And we knew The One had drained up to a few months of our lives just within the context of that dream-world we had escaped.

Still, hearing we had actually been gone that one, that years were passing by. It made the whole situation seem more real.

Kat could tell she had hit a soft spot. "Don't worry about it right now, let's continue through the ship."

So we walked down the corridors – a set-up that clearly had some _Star Trek_ and other common sci-fi concepts in its structure and layout. I wasn't too surprised that what had been our ideal of space architecture had managed to whittle itself out into the styles of actual human spacecraft.

For a while we went to the very back, to speak with Caleb and Sam for a while regarding the technology and computers. Making our way back up and exploring different areas – sleeping quarters, relaxation areas, where food was stored, restrooms, and finally to education and entertainment – Kat introduced us to some of the educational technology she had been mentioning before, as well as the games and movies.

"We can watch things together, on a screen and audio system that is shared," She said, "But we can also use these helmets. The helmets are great if you can't come to a shared decision, but honestly we try to only use them for the educational programs. They're pretty annoying, otherwise."

"How do they work for education?"

"Well, okay, say you want to learn Spanish," Kat handed me the helmet and I put it on.

"Okay, Spanish."

Suddenly, it turned on. I was in a place of virtual reality.

"This is awesome."

"What do you want to learn?"

"Food?"

The scene around me shifted, and I was suddenly in a marketplace. The signs read "Bienvenido" and I suddenly saw signs dictating different types of meat, fruits, and vegetables. The visual was so real, I could almost smell and touch the items around me, whether they were apples or fish. Manzanas, or pescado.

"This is amazingly cool."

Kat pulled the helmet off again. "You can do this later, for now..."

The screen for entertainment came down, and she pulled out some games I hadn't seen in a long time.

"You're kidding, right? Dreamcast? What happened to being all advanced and ahead of our time?"

"Try telling that to Sam and Caleb. They love the new technology, but they never gave up on old games, either. Besides, Sam loves dolphins."

She grinned and pulled out a game with a dolphin protagonist. _Ecco The Dolphin: Defender of the Future._

Marco grinned and rolled his eyes. Even I had to sigh a little. But then she began showing us more: the system was capable of handling games from more recent and older game systems, even some computer games.

"God, Jake, do you remember this one? _Lemmings_?"

I didn't, not really, but was easily amused at the graphics.

Kat let us keep checking out what it offered for a while before showing us how to navigate films, television shows, music. Then, she showed us the drawers that had been installed to hold older-style entertainment. Decks of cards, board games, and other items.

"This is an excellent setup. There's enough here to keep a group of people entertained for a long, long time."

"Exactly. But for now," Kat grabbed the _Apples to Apples _game, "We should probably go and give Lahsailat and Jaela a few rounds of this before they blow a gasket."

There wasn't too much time left for fun and games. But since no one had heard any trouble from the bridge, we knew there probably wasn't too much to worry about. And there was still almost another full hour before we could begin moving out to get Tobias and Leah.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

"Hey, it's time."

I looked up from my cards, and outside to see the beginning of the Cryhalis star setting, growing distant. It was definitely time to go. We had to act quickly, before it got cold again.

Tobias was the easy part. Ax called over to him again and this time, while still easily overheated, he managed to get over to our own spacecraft, bringing the weapons and food he could with him. He also managed to bring a small drive, which contained our information and navigation system's data for the _Estrella._ We would not be lost in _Kelbrid _space with it.

I let Ax and Marco explain our situations and goals. They were good at thinking logically, pragmatically. Caleb and Sam also managed to bring in some good advice and insight.

After discussing things on the bridge for a while, Ax and Marco had outlined the ideal goals. First, that we should attempt to strip the _Researcher_ of its weapons and all data so it could not be used to the benefit of the Cryhalis, the _Kelbrid_, or The One. Also for our own defense, since at a later time we could attempt to get the weapons up and running on the _Estrella._

Second, that we get Leah and have a place to hold her, as she would be suffering from withdrawal.

"The sick bay should be fine for that," Kat pointed out, "It's not actually made for withdrawal effects from drugs, but it was made with the potential of needing to immobilize or hold people sick, potentially even delusional."

Lastly, that we get away without anything following us. It would probably be the hardest part.

We flew in from the area we had put the _Researcher_ and made it as close to the town where we had left Leah as possible. Ax relayed a message looking for Sitionio.

"Really? Sitionio?" Caleb laughed. "The things you hear in space."

"I think everyone should get hand-held weapons in place," I said. "The situation isn't very clean here. Even if we did manage to take a full three days."

Kat nodded, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth everyone in her group was pulling out a handheld Shredder.

Tobias, Marco, and Ax had already been getting their own items together. I'd already been wearing my own. It felt weird, to be considering combat with handheld weapons. For years, I had fought tooth and claw. I felt it a much less personal experience.

I wasn't sure whether I was glad or disturbed by the disconnect I was feeling at the idea of killing my enemies by Shredder.

Everyone was given items to do. Caleb and Sam were left on the bridge, to handle the defense systems. Jaela, Lahsailat, and my friends moved out, to get Leah. The others were stationed to protect the _Estrella_, and to try and secure us coming back in when we had Leah in tow.

"Marco, take my Shredder."

He took it from me, after giving me a look.

But I knew what I was doing. I closed my eyes.

_Wolf_.

I felt my body sprout fur first, followed by the tail. My arms began to look more like forelimbs, and eventually I fell onto all fours. My feet and hands became paws, and eventually what had been left of my torso and head took on a wolf shape.

When I was complete, I inhaled.

The scents were all strange and alien to the wolf, except for the humans nearby. But I wasn't looking for the humans by the spaceship, or Marco. I was looking for another human. A female. The wolf in me couldn't smell her, yet, but I directed him to look anyway.

I began trotting toward the city, where we had been around the bazaar and the registration center. I had a feeling Leah would be around there, around quarters. I didn't need to know how she smelled, really, because she was probably the only human there.

Marco and Ax, with difficulty, managed to keep up, following. Tobias was shortly behind them, readying for a fight as best he could considering how unfamiliar he was with the Andalite body.

I had walked less than a quarter mile when I caught a human scent that was not my friends or the people by the _Estrella. _It was a new human scent. A female scent. A scent that was tinged with something that made my wolf mind uncomfortable. The tinge was sickly and weak, though something I'd expected from hearing about the drugs from earlier.

‹Got her.›

I moved from a trot to a slow run, which left Marco further behind as Tobias and Ax increasing their speed to a trot.

‹Sorry, Marco.›

Now that we were here, now that I could smell everything and knew in my mind the things we'd been told were true, I felt a sense of urgency. I was responsible for letting this happen, for not following my instincts.

I kept following the trail, as it got stronger, and by the time I hit the registration center I had a good hold of her scent even as the scents of a lot of different species of alien all began to get a hold of the wolf brain, most having that same scent in the background. I focused on the trail at hand, though. It was close, the wolf brain could feel it. The scent was now behind a wall, but I ignored the wolf instinct to dig at it.

‹Ax, this area right here, it's a door. Can you get it open?›

He looked around for a while, finding a keypad. He didn't try very long before slicing at it with his tail and rewiring the thing from inside.

When the door opened, the scent became overwhelming. Even Ax reeled as the stench hit him.

‹Ugh.› I was disgusted.

‹They are leaving the workers to rot in their own filth.›

I tried to track her scent again, but it was impossible for me to distinguish her scent from others in there, with the close sleeping quarters and other disturbing scents to the wolf mind. In any case, Leah was sleeping somewhere in very close quarters.

I demorphed. The stench was less powerful, but the human reflex to gag came in pretty quickly. I decided to morph again, this time to owl. Ax looked at me with envy. But unlike me, he had both a natural weapon and a Shredder.

Once I completed the morph, I flapped my wings a few hard times, finding an area to perch and look around. The owl was not bothered by smell. But that didn't make me feel better when I saw around me the conditions the aliens were sleeping in. I decided I wouldn't mention the situation to Ax more than absolutely necessary, though he already knew a lot of it himself.

There were over fifty animals in the room. I knew them to be sapient workers for the Cryhalis that owned this service system. They weren't human, but I still thought they looked infected, sickly.

I turned my head left, right. Looking for a human being. I finally saw her.

She was cuffed to a post by a wall corner, which was mostly hidden by the bed next to her with another in it. She had lost weight, and she was breathing shallowly. A bit erratically. I couldn't see her eyes under wild hair, and there were sores at her feet, her hands, her neck.

‹Ax, she's at the other end of the room, in the right corner.›

I began demorphing as Ax stepped gingerly around the beds, slowly making his way to the other side, avoiding any noise. I followed him, quickly, remembering the route from when I had been in morph.

"We have to get her out quietly, try not to wake the others up." I whispered. I was still hoping we could get out undetected.

Ax's stalk eyes moved around uselessly, trying to get a good view of the room even in the dark. With his main eyes, he gave a casual glance over the thing that kept Leah attached to the corner. Finally, he struck. Not at the end of the cuff by her wrist, but at the wooden post that had the other end, at the wall.

I was a bit confused at first, but then realized he was avoiding noise. The post had been strong enough to hold Leah, but it came apart almost silently for Ax. Even Leah remained asleep.

‹Do we wake her?›

"Not sure. If she puts up a fight she might wake the others up." Though I wasn't about to admit it, the idea of picking her up made me uncomfortable. Her emaciated figure looked so fragile, like she would break at the lightest touch. And that didn't account for the smell and filth – though obviously I would work around that because we had to.

I reached down to grab her, pick her up, and her head rolled. Leah looked at me awake, with dull eyes, mouth open.

"Nnn... No."

"Not your choice this time," I whispered.

I wasn't sure what had happened. Obviously, it was counter-productive on the part of the Cryhalis to have someone in her state in their service. Everyone was sickly, everyone was thin and reeking, but Leah couldn't even lift her head. Whatever they had intended – drug or otherwise – it hadn't worked like they had intended. She was on the verge of death.

Ax hadn't seen what I had in owl morph, and wouldn't get a good look at her until we were back on the _Estrella._ But his tail twitched when he heard her, and his stalk eyes moved forward, like he was trying to be able to see through the black that was the room.

"Not now, Ax, we have to go."

I picked her up – too easily – and we made our way quickly back across the room, managing not to stumble across anyone else in the dark. Outside, it was getting colder, fast, and there wasn't so much as a moon to guide us.

Leah struggled, but the attempt was so pathetic I wasn't sure Ax even noticed it. Soon after, we'd caught up with Marco. He couldn't see any better than we could, but the smell that coated Leah hit him, and I could hear him trying not to gag.

"Marco, the Shredder."

He handed it to me.

We continued to hurry as we started moving away from the temperature being tolerable back into it being unbearably cold, like the night prior. I was thankful so far that we had evaded Sitionio, or the others of the center. Though it had crossed my mind that whatever had happened to Leah, they probably hadn't cared at that point what became of her.

I was enraged. But I couldn't do anything about it, anymore than the zoo, or anything else I'd encountered.

"We're almost there." Marco chattered through his teeth, forcing the words out. We saw lights from the _Estrella._

Something felt wrong, though. It sat wrong, in my chest, waiting for me to notice it.

"Is it just me, or are there too many lights?"

‹It appears there are _Kelbrid_ and Cryhalis ahead.› Ax said grimly.

He and Marco pulled out their Shredders. Without asking, they moved ahead to make me more difficult to shoot. I couldn't get a hold of my own Shredder, since I was holding Leah.

"Well," Marco said, "At least we're in luck."

"What do you mean?"

‹They have not seen the _Estrella_.› Ax had a bewildered tone. ‹They are waiting by the _Researcher_.›

We wouldn't be able to survive the cold much longer outside. But I didn't know what to do without giving away the position of the other ship. Approaching slowly, the aliens ahead finally took notice of us. A _Kelbrid_ turned their reptilian heads at me, and the Cryhalis, from the zoo, gave me what I assumed to be a grin.

The _Kelbrid_ already had weapons drawn. Marco and Ax cocked their own, tail behind them.

"We only want the Andalites," one said, stepping away from the others.

"Never gonna happen."

The Cryhalis took a hold of their Dracon beams, cocking them at us point-blank, approaching slowly. "Come along with us. You are ours now, and will make an excellent addition to the zoo. Heroes, from another planet? It is gold! Far better than those youths."

"Also never gonna happen."

In my head, I was realizing the situation we had. The _Kelbrid_ had worked with the Cryhalis. By offering us, aliens they knew to have high value in our respective cultures, they had given the Cryhalis incentive to work with them, to help them capture Aximili and the other Andalites. The Cryhalis didn't need the Andalites right now. They didn't even need a real Andalite – Tobias would suit them perfectly as an Andalite.

They just wanted the novelty of having us for their zoo.

I was at a loss as to how we would beat all of them – the ten of them versus the two of us who could fight. But before I could think of an idea, the _Researcher_ began to self destruct.

_Tssseeeeew! Tssseeeeeww!_

Its weapons began going off, exploding, pieces falling and light flashing. The _Kelbrid _and Cryhalis looked on at them, fascinated. Distracted just long enough. A door in mid-air opened, an entrance to the _Estrella, _and Ax, Marco and I ran for the spacecraft like bats out of hell. Jaela, Lahsailat, Kat and others kept their Shredders trained on the Cryhalis, on the _Kelbrid_ from the entrance or immediately out front, covering us. Ax and Marco fell behind me, to cover from the other side.

It was only a few seconds, really, before the _Kelbrid _and Cryhalis began exchanging fire with our own spacecraft. But Lahsailat and Kat, in particular, were excellent at aiming, along with Ax. Between everyone, the Cryhalis and _Kelbrid_ had been stunned within minutes.

We were inside, and a minute after that, we were gone.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

We didn't have much time to spread the kudos.

As soon as we were in, Kat and Jessie took hold of Leah and dragged her off to sick bay, to clean her up. Her best fighting was still at best hardly noticeable, and I saw her stop struggling, passing out before they ever made it to the sick bay room from the corridor.

"What _happened_?" Caleb asked. The horror and disgust were palpable.

"Drug they give to the workers," I said. "I'm really not sure what happened after that. Can we help her out, or do I need to try to find more of the drug before we jump to Z-Space?"

Caleb shrugged. "Our sick bay's usually good at creating synthetic material, but I would ask Jessie first. It's more of her thing."

I sat for a moment. Just tired. But then I sighed, and got up to go.

When I reached the sick bay, Kat and Jessie had already managed to clean Leah off, and get her into clean clothes. She was still trying to tell us she wanted to go back. Jessie looked at me.

"Do you know what happened?"

"Leah has a sensitivity to drugs. You could give her a quarter or so of something and it would have the same affect on her as a full dosage. So being repeatedly given a full dosage for someone of her size..."

"They accidentally gave her too much to be useful to them."

Jessie nodded. "I'm trying to make a synthetic right now, to hold over her symptoms. It might take a while though."

"Is there no way to just fix it? I mean..." I looked at Leah, feeling queasy. It was different from injuries, somehow. Sad, and pathetic. "I mean, no way to just cure her without the side effects?"

Jessie shook her head. "We've been getting more effective in medical technology to help people through the process of recovery. But it's not exactly at a point where we can just give someone a pill and it all goes away. We just have to hope it all happens quickly. I wouldn't even give Leah a synthetic, except I think the withdrawal period might honestly kill her at this point."

"We are also going to be giving her treatments for hydration and nutrients, as well. This thing really took a destructive blow to her appetite. The infections from parasites on her skin – and bacterial infections – will be taken care of very quickly in comparison."

I looked at Leah again. They were using force fields to keep her restrained to her bed, but I wasn't sure they were even necessary given how weak she was at the moment. It was like looking at a skeleton with skin. I was embarrassed, but I shuddered.

Kat and Jessie were managing to look at this so objectively, in comparison.

"Thanks."

Turning around, I quickly left the room. Outside and on the way back to the bridge, I saw Ax.

‹That filthy planet!› he spat. He had, of course, seen Leah as soon as we got out of the dark and into the light of the _Estrella._

"I agree, Ax. Well, it might be a little more complicated than that, but I agree with the sentiment."

Sam and Caleb had gone back to manage the computers and other information. Lahsailat and Jaela were managing the navigation and other involved controls for directing the _Estrella_. Marco was on defense, ready for setting up the force fields and other distractions.

Kat suddenly said, "Incoming message – from an Andalite frequency."

"It may be our friend, Ondrean."

Kat thought it over, and then opened communications to greet him. We didn't get to look at him visually, but his thought-speak, familiar, came in and out with some difficulty.

‹Prince Aximili?›

‹It is I.›

Kat gave him a bit of a look, but went back to managing the controls she had, and told me to handle the Zero-space preparations.

‹I have found... Promising people... Crew. Where we discussed. The Andalites are being... Awful politicians... Still under the eyes.›

"We can't hear you," Kat said, trying to maintain deference. "But we will attempt to contact you again to make sure we have the message correct at the soonest convenience.

I went back to handling the Z-Space controls.

"Prepare for the jump."

But as I set the controls, I saw a familiar spacecraft.

The Blade Ship.

I looked straight at it. And I knew that the people on it, and The One, were looking at me. I could feel time slowing to a stop as we all turned our attention to it, knowing, if it attacked, we had no way to fend it off. We had not managed to successfully put the weapons from the _Researcher_ onto the _Estrella._

But even as time stood still for that long moment, preparing for Z-Space, setting coordinates for the place we were to meet with Ondrean, the Blade Ship turned, and made its own jump into Z-Space.

"Why do you think they left us alone? Why let us go at our most vulnerable?"

"Maybe because we are vulnerable," I said, weary. "Maybe because we still managed to cause it a lot of pain last time."

I didn't know why they had made their decision. But The One, and the crew on the Blade Ship, had decided to leave us alone. This time. I set the rest of the controls, and we punched it as we made the jump, leaving the Cryhalis planet behind us.


End file.
